


Balanced on the Knife Edge

by Ariel J Moody (arieljmoody)



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Argonians, Assassination, Assassins & Hitmen, Canon LGBTQ Female Character, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Cyrodiil, Dark Elves, F/F, Fantasy, Magic, Magic-Users, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Romance, Trans Female Character, Transgender, Undead, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-11-07 07:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 29,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11054193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arieljmoody/pseuds/Ariel%20J%20Moody
Summary: A failed assassin. A disgraced noble of Morrowind. Two unlikely companions.When Nusha the Shadowscale assassin sneaks into the basement of her first target, she thinks it’s going to be an easy job. But Karme, a Dark Elf from Morrowind, throws a spanner in the works when she kills Nusha’s mark. Nusha needs to take the amulet from the assissated man’s body, only there’s one problem: it’s cursed, and Karme can’t remove it from around her neck.Nusha can’t stand the prim and proper Karme, and Karme feels much the same about the sardonic Argonian. But when the cursed amulet sends hordes of undead soldiers after them, the two will have to put their differences aside in order to save each other and all of Cyrodiil.Balanced on the Knife Edge is a story set in the Elder Scrolls world, with original characters. If you’re tired of hegemonic fantasy with nothing but straight characters, you’ll LOVE this story, because it’s action-packed and queer as heck!--Updates every Wednesday and Friday!--





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha fails to assassinate her first mark when the froofy Dunmer Karme kills him first.

“Hurry up, you wench,” Nusha hissed.

Nusha had been waiting in the cellar for almost an hour now, curled up between two crates like a viper around her eggs. The air was frosty and dank, poison to the Argonian’s cold blood, and she dug her rake-like claws into her palm to stay alert.

Above her, an argument raged between husband and wife. The woman had been stomping around the place when Nusha arrived, banging drawers and cupboards as if it were the End of Times. Her husband, Nusha’s mark, woke up soon after, and they had been arguing ever since. Screeching, throwing things, slamming doors.

It was enough to make anyone swear off romance for good.

Svaknal Asgariksen seemed like an easy target at first. If someone merely wanted him dead, they only needed wait until he drank himself into Oblivion, or for his debts to catch up with him.

But the client wanted the amulet that hung around his neck at all times, and Svaknal’s time was quickly running out. As Nusha had been told, at any moment a horde of moneylenders, vicious Orcs, would be knocking at his door, hungry for blood and coin. The amulet had to be taken before that could happen.

Nusha had endured the mockery of her peers, waited patiently for years so she could prove them wrong. And now, thanks to this idiotic woman, she was going to fail her first mission.

The fighting upstairs reached a crescendo. Nusha tensed, daggers held in each hand, ready to move. The wife shouted something in a foreign tongue, and a loud _BOOM_ followed.

Silence filled the house.

Nusha shuffled the daggers in her hand, waiting for a sign to ascend. All she could hear was the ragged breathing of the wife.

She wasn’t to be harmed. That was part of the brief. And if the woman saw Nusha, she risked revealing her identity to a mundane. But at this rate, the moneylenders would get to Svaknal before Nusha could. There was no choice.

She slipped out from between the two crates and sprinted up the stairs.

At the last moment, the door opened, spilling wan light onto Nusha’s face. A tall, elven silhouette appeared before her. There was no time to respond, and Nusha ran straight into the plum-skinned woman, bouncing backwards and tumbling down the stairs.

“By the Mad Queen!”

Nusha scrambled to her feet. Her daggers had been knocked out of her hands, and now she searched for them in the dark of the cellar. The Dunmer woman who had opened the door stood dumbfounded at the entrance to the cellar. She filled almost the entire door frame, dressed in a Nordic jerkin and trousers, a leather satchel slung over her shoulder. Her face seemed to rest by default on an imperious scowl, and her accent betrayed her status as an immigrant from Morrowind.

“What are you doing in my house? I’ll call the guards!”

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Nusha, rescuing a dagger from a pile of old linen.

In reality, she was panicking. Once she got her daggers back, she would high tail it out of there. But she needed to get this Dark Elf off her back first.

“I was only here to kill your husband.”

No point in lying, Nusha supposed. And this woman didn’t seem particularly fond of her husband, either.

“Well, I’ve just killed him myself.”

“What?”

Nusha spun round and snapped her teeth. This Dunmer wench had stolen _her_ kill?!

“Yes. It seems all those years training Destruction magic were not wasted!”

She was proud of her achievement. So much so, that she seemed to temporarily forget that Nusha was a stranger hiding in her cellar. The Argonian took the opportunity to retrieve her second dagger from beneath a crate.

Despite her appearance, she had killed somebody. Nusha wondered briefly if meeting this Dunmer was part of the prophecy, her intended path. Had Sithis, in his paternal wisdom, arranged their meeting, and if so, why? It was in Nusha’s interest to find out more about this woman, even if she did desert her in the end.

“Where is the amulet?” Nusha asked, putting on her best attempt at a friendly tone of voice.

“You mean this?”

The woman pulled out a bright-red amulet from under her shirt.

“Yes. Please give it to me.”

“And why should I do that?”

“I will spare your life.”

The woman laughed. “I fear no Argonian. Your kind are all the same: spineless adders slinking through the grass.”

Nusha pulled out her dagger and aimed for the girl’s throat. Contract be damned, she would not be insulted like this.

A loud banging came from upstairs.

“Open up, Svaknal! We know you’re in there!”

“What’s that? Oh no, it’s those Orcs!”

“Tell you what,” Nusha said, “I’ll help you escape Bruma, keep you safe from the Orcs, _if_ you give me the amulet.”

The Dunmer wrung her hands and chewed her lip. “Fine! It’s probably not worth anything, anyway. But don’t turn your back on me once we’re out, assassin. My family is of great repute in Morrowind, and I can assure you will pay for any damage done to me.”

She marched down the stairs like a schoolteacher come to rap Nusha on the knuckles. Nusha could barely conceal a mocking grin.

“What is your name?”

“Nusha. And yours, milady?”

“I am Karme Arenim of House Hlaalu. I am—”

Another bang came from upstairs, and it sounded like the front door was starting to cave.

“No time for that. Let’s move.”

Nusha clambered up the ladder out of the cellar and they emerged into the frosty evening air. Nusha couldn’t wait to return to the warmer climes of Blackwood.

“We need to—”

She stopped short, jumping forward and narrowly missing the swing of an axe aimed at her head. She rolled over to see the assailant: an Orc clad in heavy armour. He opened his mouth to cry out to his comrades, but Karme stuck out her hand and stuttered some words, and a gauzy white haze spread into the air, wrapping around the Orc. He froze, dropped his axe, and fell to the ground in a clatter of steel.

Nusha got up to examine him. His eyes were still half-open, and his limbs jutted out stiffly at odd angles. A paralysis spell.

“You’re better than I expected.”

“I told you, I killed Svaknal single-handedly!”

“I thought that was a fluke.”

Karme rolled her eyes. “Are we going to escape or keep bickering here until an Orc chops us down?”

“The moneylenders are everywhere,” Nusha muttered. “We’ll have to escape over one of the city walls. Follow me, and don’t make a sound.”

Nusha ducked and ran across the road towards the chapel, hopping over the stone wall into the graveyard. Karme fumbled behind her, almost tripping on the path. Nusha motioned to some bushes behind a mausoleum and they crawled inside.

“Now what?” Karme whispered.

“Now we wait.”

Something Nusha took for granted was torture for the Dark Elf, who within minutes was already whining of cramps and boredom. Nusha was sorely tempted to toss her out with a bow on her head for the Orcs to find, but the faint glimmer of the amulet stayed her.

Nusha had failed to kill the mark, but she could still complete her mission. And maybe this girl could be a candidate for the Dark Brotherhood, if Nusha managed to put up with her for that long.

“How are we going to climb the wall, anyway?”

Karme’s whisper woke Nusha from her thoughts. Along with her pitch-black scales, she’d been blessed with sturdy claws that made climbing walls a piece of cake. Karme’s nails, on the other hand, were clean and dainty, as if they’d never seen a day’s work.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Nusha said, crawling out of the bushes.

She snuck out of the graveyard, ducking behind walls to avoid the Orcs who patrolled the town. In a barrel behind a shop she found some rope, and with her prize in hand she returned to their hiding spot.

They waited several more hours, until one-by-one the candles and hearth fires of Bruma were put out, and the town fell into an exquisite inky blackness. The stars were brighter here than anywhere Nusha had seen before, but they didn’t have time to sit and stare at them.

She turned to Karme and nudged her awake.

“Come on,” Nusha whispered, climbing out of the bushes.

There was no reason she couldn’t just threaten Karme, take the trinket at knifepoint, and leave her there in the graveyard. That wouldn’t technically be disregarding the rules of the contract. But there was something about this situation that felt like more than mere chance to Nusha. It was the same heady feeling she’d gotten when Sithis came to her, gave her the vision that changed her life. And who was she to disobey the will of the Night Father?

Besides, Nusha had made a deal with her. And the last thing she wanted was to prove correct this snobby Dunmer’s racist stereotypes.

They crept up to the western wall. Nusha found a slightly weathered section, slung the rope over her shoulder, and dug her claws into the crevices. She then proceeded to crawl up the wall like a spider. Her dark-pigmented scales let her blend easily into the night. If any guards looked, all they would see was a smear of shadow.

Nusha waited just below the rampart for a guard to pass. She then flipped over and landed silently on her toes. She threw the rope down and hauled Karme up, struggling at her weight. Compared to the tall, broad-shouldered Dark Elf, Nusha was minuscule. After a few minutes of straining Karme stood beside her.

Over Karme’s shoulder Nusha saw the orange glow that signalled an approaching guard. There was no time to climb down. She pointed to a pile of snow lying on the other side and shoved Karme off before she could protest, jumping after her.

The snow swallowed Nusha up to her neck. She clawed her way out of it and helped Karme, who was spluttering and spitting snow out of her mouth.

“You could’ve given me some warning!”

“Shh!”

Nusha ducked low, dragging the Dunmer down with her. Above, a guard leant over the edge of the wall, searching for the source of the noise. An agonising minute passed, until the guard left and they could creep away.

“You don’t have an ounce of survival instinct in you, do you? Now, I helped you get out of Bruma. Hand over the amulet.”

Karme sighed and pulled at the chain. It caught on her neck, and she tried again. But for some reason, however hard she pulled, whichever way she moved it, the amulet would not go over her head.

“I can’t take it off.”

“Let me have a go at that,” Nusha muttered, taking it from her hands. She didn’t have time to be wasting like this.

But Karme hadn’t been joking around. There was an odd quality to the chain, as if it shrank every time someone tried to remove it.

“Ow! Will you stop that?”

“Let me try and cut it off.”

“ _I’ll_ try it. Don’t trust you to not chop my head off.”

Nusha reluctantly handed her dagger over and the girl sawed at the chain. It was hopeless, though. Whatever magic prevented the amulet from being removed also protected the chain.

The only way to get it off would be to kill her, Nusha reckoned.

“I’m sorry,” Karme said, “but you’re just going to have to leave without this amulet.”

“Oh no, I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re coming with me. To the Dark Brotherhood.”

A look of surprise, then disgust, flickered on Karme’s face.

“The Dark Brotherhood? I would rather strip naked and go skipping through Skyrim than go there. So that’s where you’re from. Figures. A Morag Tong assassin wouldn’t be so hapless as to let someone else take their mark.”

“I don’t care what your opinion of the Dark Brotherhood is. I was tasked to retrieve that amulet, and Sithis help me, I will.”

Nusha hardly had the most glowing opinion of the Brotherhood herself. As a Shadowscale, growing up in the halls of the Dark Priory, she had seen its uglier sides. But there was no way she was going to let her first mission be a complete failure.

“Besides,” she said in a husky voice, “you’ll need some way to survive now that you’re on the run. You could be quite a competent killer if you put your mind to it.”

Karme stuck her nose up. “The Dark Brotherhood is for gold-hungry lowlives.”

“And how do you expect to get by now that you’ve killed your husband? I doubt that satchel is overflowing with coins.”

She tightened the grip around her bag. “Look, I don’t care how desperate you are for new recruits, I am _not_ going to the Dark Brotherhood!”

Nusha squinted at her. Her claws itched to dig into this prim little missy’s throat, but she suppressed the urge.

“Fine, then. We’ll part ways. I’m sure you’ve got a mansion waiting for you in the Imperial City, and a tent and rations in that travelling bag of yours. I’m sure you know to avoid the main roads, which the moneylenders will be searching for your dearly departed husband, and I’m _sure_ you know how to make your way through the Jerall Mountains. How foolish I was to ever doubt the abilities of Karme Arenim, renowned sorceress and ethical assassin!”

Nusha didn’t wait for a response, but simply turned away and marched into the forest. She’d let the stupid girl get killed by a bear and take the amulet off her cold, dead body.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karme tries-and fails-to survive in the Jerall Mountains. She reluctantly teams up with Nusha.

Karme was many things, but a quitter was not one of them. She would make it through these godforsaken mountains and prove that charcoal-scaled Argonian wrong.

Truthfully, she wasn’t sure where she was going. The plan had been to leave Bruma by the main road, slip out before anyone found out about Svaknal (not that Karme thought people would care; she was doing the town a favour, really), and head to Cheydinhal. There she would petition the help of Count Andel Indarys, who, as a fellow immigrant from Morrowind, from House Hlaalu no less, would be compelled by her tearjerking story to give her board and lodging. And if the good count so desired, she might even work, putting her education and upbringing to good use.

Of course, this was all fancy, and Karme knew this. Traipsing through pine trees, dressed in commoner clothes, her stomach growled like a wolf, and she knew that she was in for some truly hard times. But the image of the sneer on that Argonian’s face, and the fear of the moneylenders and guards that would come after her if she gave in, kept her going.

Karme stopped by a stream to refill her waterskin and rest. She had been making slow progress, and she supposed it was now midnight. If she tried to sleep here, with no tent, she’d freeze to death, or be gobbled up by a wolf. So she would keep going.

The problem was, Karme had no idea whether she was going the right way. She searched vainly in the sky for the constellations that would guide her, wishing she’d paid more attention to her tutor when he rambled on about the cosmos.

Karme was about to continue when her eye caught on something. A few metres away from the stream there was a log. She was sure she had seen this exact log before, almost an hour ago. She stood up, walked around the clearing, and it slowly dawned on her that she had been to this exact place already.

“Oh, fireblood!”

She kicked the log and crouched beside it. How exactly had she lost her way? She was following one of the paths, but in the dark she must have turned back on herself.

A wolf howled in the distance, and she started to shiver. She might be able to fight one or two off with magic, but even then, she’d probably starve before she reached civilisation.

“Need some help?”

Nusha appeared in front of her, melting out of the undergrowth. Karme jumped and cursed again.

“Have you been following me all this time? Just to laugh at me?”

“Not _just_ to laugh at you. I told you, I need that amulet.”

“Believe me, I’d give it to you if I could!”

The Argonian looked at her disparagingly. “There’s no point in us travelling separately. Where are you heading?”

“Chorrol,” she spat out.

“I can take you there, make sure you don’t starve or get eaten. All I ask in return is that you at least consider going to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary with me.”

Karme sighed. She did not like to be this beholden to someone, but she had no choice. “Fine. Do you know how to hunt?”

“Already taken care of.” She disappeared into a bush and came back holding two rabbits.

“There are rabbits here?”

“You might’ve noticed had you not been stomping through the forest like that. Can you make a fire?”

Karme bit her lip. “I can try.”

“What, so you can blast a man apart but not make a campfire?”

“It’s not that simple!” she retorted. “I find it hard to control it, use it in small quantities.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. You go make a fire while I skin these.”

Nusha lay the rabbits out on the log and started hacking at them with a knife. Karme felt her stomach turn, and quickly went to collect firewood. She felt stupid, scrambling about in the dark for twigs, but her hunger won out over her embarrassment.

Half-an-hour later, with only minimal burns sustained, they sat around a crackling fire, tucking into a meal of cooked rabbit. Nusha gobbled hers up in minutes, and used her sharp teeth to scrape the bones clean, making an awful noise. Karme tried her best to nibble at her food in a dignified way, but that led to her almost dropping her dinner in the dirt, so eventually she gave up and just went for it.

Nusha asked what Karme intended to do in Chorrol, and she explained her plan to seek sanctuary. If Nusha thought it stupid, she managed to hide her derision, for once.

“I suppose you must be curious about me,” Karme said.

“Not particularly.”

Oh, how Nusha irritated her! The Argonian was licking the grease off her claws now, her expression nonchalant.

“Well, we hardly have anything else to talk about.”

Nusha turned to her. “You’re right. And it may help me to know more about you.”

Karme knew what she meant: she wanted to figure out how somebody like her had managed to kill Svaknal. She chose to take the comment as polite curiosity.

“I grew up in Morrowind, as I’m sure you have guessed, in Vivec. It’s one of the grandest cities there, an assemblage of floating mer-made islands, each housing a different canton. I led a fairly uneventful existence, that is, until a few months ago.”

Here she paused, her skin prickling with the pain of buried memories. Nusha looked faintly bored.

“My family has been in House Hlaalu for generations, and we have always been held in high esteem. Ever since the Nerevarine, though, things have gone akilter. Father voiced his opinion on the Tribunal—he is an intelligent man, a philosopher—saying that perhaps, given the coming of the Nerevarine, and the events that followed, the Tribunal are no longer as… essential as they once were.”

“He spoke out against the Tribunal?”

“Not directly,” she stressed. “My father has always been most careful with his words, and he always keeps our land’s best intentions at heart. Our House has always treaded a delicate balance. We closely aligned with the Empire, a fact that can lead those from the other Houses to distrust us. A noble of House Redoran publicly decried what my father said, and in order to avoid serious conflict from this perceived slight against Dunmer tradition, my family was expelled from House Hlaalu.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It was horrific! Though we are lucky that they did not go for a more direct approach. It is common practice for such disagreements to be dealt with by the Morag Tong, so I suppose I should consider myself lucky that my father is still alive. But the social repercussions of our expulsion were huge! In the streets of Vivec, where friends and acquaintances once greeted me, I was met with disdain.”

Karme paused for dramatic effect, but Nusha remained untouched by the story. Karme supposed this muddy-scaled cutthroat had no friends to speak of. At least, she could not imagine who would wish to spend time with her.

“My parents wisely chose to send me to Cyrodiil, that I may find a more stable future here. We have always been in favour of the Empire, though I must admit, I expected a warmer welcome. I had decided to join the Mages’ Guild—after all, I had been tutored in magic for many years—but that blasted Hannibal Traven changed the statutes before I arrived, requiring any candidate wishing to join the guild to obtain recommendations from the chapters around Cyrodiil.”

“So you travelled around Cyrodiil?”

“I attempted to. I went to Skingrad and Chorrol before realising I didn’t stand a chance. It turns out my education in magic had not been quite as… comprehensive as I once thought. And that foul lizard in Chorrol—”

She stopped and cleared her throat. Nusha seemed entirely unperturbed by the slight. While she showed little outward reactions, Karme couldn’t help but wonder what machinations went on in her head.

“At any rate, I wound up in Bruma, penniless and at my wit’s end. I petitioned the countess for help, and she had the cheek to ask me to go on a dangerous expedition to obtain an Akaviri artefact for her!”

Karme was bending the truth a little. She had gone into the castle and boasted about her magical ability, hoping to work for her. In return, the countess had proposed she used her abilities to feed her relic-collecting habit, which Karme knew would lead toher certain death.

“With nowhere else to go, I took to the local tavern, and that’s where I met Svaknal. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

She stopped there and picked at her trousers.

“Hang on, that’s not the end of the story,” Nusha said. “How did you end up marrying Svaknal?”

“I’d rather not go into it.”

For the first time since they met, Nusha’s lips curled up into a grin. At least, Karme thought it was a grin. She had never been able to read Argonians very well, nor did she care to.

“You don’t want to talk about it because it’s embarrassing, don’t you? After all, why would a well-to-do Dunmer lady like you end up with a beer-swilling Nord?”

“Fine. I’ll tell you. He tricked me.”

“Can’t imagine that’s hard.”

Karme shot Nusha a look and she quietened down.

“He wore the amulet all the time, even when he went to sleep. He could remove it, I think, he simply never chose to. It was a family heirloom, apparently a treasure found by some adventurous ancestor of his, and he constantly boasted of its value, saying that one day he would sell it and become rich. It had become somewhat of a joke around town. I, however, was instantly taken in by his story when we met in Olav’s Tap and Tack, and I assumed he was of decent provenance to have such an object.”

“What, you really thought he was something special?”

“I was not familiar with Nordic culture at the time. I thought he was well-off, for a Nord, but I realise now that I was only comparing him with the others in the tavern and I may have misjudged. He was a smooth talker, despite his inadequacies, and after failing so miserably in my quest, I was thrilled to have somebody who would listen to me.”

“And buy you drinks.”

Karme blushed a deep aquamarine but did not deny it. “It was all a rather rushed affair, and we got married the next morning. After I—”

“Hold on, you met him, had a few drinks, and decided to tie the knot, all in one _night_?”

Karme gritted her teeth. “I had no money and no sense. Of course, now I can see it was an incredibly foolish course of action.” She stopped, wondering why she was telling the Argonian all this, anyway.

“Not as foolish as killing your husband and running away into the mountains with zero survival skills.”

Karme stood up, now fuming. “I will not take this kind of harassment!”

“Sorry, sorry.”

The Argonian was chastened, but for how long, Karme wasn’t sure. She sat back down and sulked. She usually loved to talk about herself, but this time it had backfired, reminding her of how she had utterly failed to survive in Cyrodiil. All she knew was Morrowind, and even then she had rarely left the confines of Vivec. Maybe Nusha was right, and she was a fool.

“So what’s the end of the story?” Nusha asked.

“That’s more or less the gist of it. A few weeks after marrying Svaknal, after realising he was a nobody, I decided to escape.”

Nusha moved her shoulders, in some kind of half-shrug half-shiver.

“What about you?” Karme asked. “I know nothing of your past.”

“And I’d prefer it stay that way. Nothing personal. I just like to focus on the future.”

The mood shifted, and Nusha got up, putting out the fire and fussing about in her pack. Karme felt like she had said something wrong, but after everything that had happened today, she was too exhausted to ponder it.

Besides, in a few days’ time they’d be in Chorrol, and she could be rid of Nusha. At least, she hoped. She was starting to doubt anyone would help her, aside from this strange Argonian.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha and Karme are ambushed on their way to Chorrol. In the Chorrol Sanctuary, Nusha meets an old enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's left kudos! Comments are also super appreciated. I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you're enjoying reading it ^^

Nusha’s ears pricked up at the sound of horses and men’s voices. She crawled out of her bed of mud and pine needles and stumbled through the trees. After a few minutes of trailing the sound she emerged onto a road where a caravan was trundling by.

“Hail!” she called.

“By Akatosh, you scared us!”

The horses were made to stop, and one of the two Imperials sitting up front descended with a sneer on his face.

“What do you want? Not here to try and rob us, I hope. We’ve got protection.”

Out of the back of the caravan an Orc appeared, with a rather glum expression on his face. He was holding a broadsword, but didn’t look particularly keen on fighting.

“Oh no, I’m here to make a deal. I have a friend with me—a young Dunmer maiden—and we wish to make passage to Chorrol. Is there space on your cart?”

The Imperial licked his lips and rubbed his chin. The ‘maiden’ part had clearly worked.

“We could take you… for the low price of ten Septims.”

“Wonderful. Wait here while I fetch my companion.”

Nusha knew they were paying far more than was fair, but hiking to Chorrol with Karme whining all the way would cost Nusha far more than ten Septims.

“Wake up,” she said, shaking Karme’s shoulder.

“Is it time to go already?”

She groaned as she stood up, clearly not used to such basic conditions.

“I found us a ride.”

Karme perked up considerably, until she saw the caravan they were travelling in. They were in the cart in the back, knee-to-knee on a narrow bench with the Orc who was known as ‘Snottalug’, for his constant runny nose. On either side of them were stacked crates of goods, as well as a few penned-in sheep that were close enough to drool on them. This happened to Karme more than once, and Nusha did a poor job of hiding her laughter.

Snottalug was entirely untalkative, and Karme quickly fell asleep. Nusha, however, stayed alert. She didn’t trust the Imperials or their bodyguard. They’d given Karme a look over that made Nusha wonder if they were interested in more than just her physical assets.

A few hours later they went down a much rougher road, and Karme was jolted awake by the bumping and shuddering. The cart pulled to a stop, and before Nusha could ask what was going on, Snottalug had headed outside.

It was a trap, Nusha was sure. Karme, despite her clothes, had an air of riches about her, and these Imperials weren’t about to pass up the opportunity to rob two fools and leave the bodies in the middle of nowhere.

Karme scowled. “If they aren’t going to tell us what’s going on, I’m going to go ask.”

“Wait!”

Karme left the carriage and Nusha quickly followed behind her. The sunlight stung her eyes, and it took a moment to get her bearings. Karme was stretching, completely oblivious to Snottalug, who was lunging at her with his sword.

“Look out!” Nusha cried.

Karme turned, and saw the Orc’s blade at the last moment. She flung herself to the side, barely dodging it. A loud cry sounded from the trees, and the two Imperials, now wielding swords, charged forth. Nusha had her throwing knives in hand by now, and tossed them at the oncoming men. The blades landed cleanly in their larynges, and they fell to the ground, gasping for air.

Karme had managed to stand up, but Snottalug was backing her up against a tree, readying a second strike. He was clearly hesitating after the swift death of his masters, but didn’t have the guts to give up and leave them alone. Karme stared at him in terror, like a fish out of water.

Nusha groaned and ran forward. She leapt onto Snottalug and looped her arms around his shoulders.

He cried out, bucking and swinging, trying to throw her off. She drew out her dagger and, scrambling with her legs to get a good purchase, pulled it across his throat.

“Ugh!” Karme cried.

Nusha jumped off Snottalug, and he came crashing to the ground, blood spraying from his neck like a fountain, drenching Karme’s shirt. Nusha would’ve laughed if she wasn’t angry.

“Why didn’t you use your magic?” she said in a low grunt. She collected her knives from the throats of the Imperials, careful to not get blood on herself.

Karme stood there blinking for a moment, still recovering from the shock. Then her face contorted in anger.

“Not all of us are trained killers! I panicked!”

“It’s a good thing you have me to protect you.”

“I wouldn’t have needed the protection if you hadn’t hitched us a ride on a caravan with a bunch of murderers!”

Nusha sighed and rubbed her side, where Snottalug had elbowed her hard. This argument was going nowhere.

“I don’t know why they thought we were worth robbing,” she said. “Anyway, we can take the horses now and make quick progress to Chorrol. Assuming they haven’t lead us too far off course.”

Nusha went to the caravan and rummaged around the crates, taking whatever might be useful. She opened the sheep pen, but they barely seemed to notice, staying inside the cart. They’d probably be eaten by a bear, but that was none of her business.

They took the horses and headed to Chorrol. Karme sulked for most of the day, only talking to Nusha when they stopped and made camp for dinner, eating the food they’d pillaged from the caravan. Nusha didn’t raise the topic of what would happen once they arrived in Chorrol, but she was sure Karme would refuse to come to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary. And after seeing the shameful display she’d made against Snottalug, it was probably for the better.

Chorrol was where she was supposed to drop off the amulet. She decided she would tell a white lie, say that in the chaos with the moneylenders the amulet had been taken by another. Then she would head back to her home Sanctuary in Leyawiin, where hopefully retribution would not await her for her failure.

Nusha was used to failing, but it still stung each time. And this time she had a feeling there would be no lenience. She had, after all, spent the last few years talking about her prophecy, the great destiny Sithis had promised her in a vision. Now, in her time of greatest need, it seemed Sithis had forsaken her.

They arrived in Chorrol around noon the next day. They parked their horses at the stable outside town, but lingered by the gate.

“You have your own business,” Nusha said. “I’m going to the Sanctuary.”

Karme for a brief moment looked sorry, as if she regretted the sour note on which they were parting. Nusha turned to leave but Karme grabbed her arm.

“Wait! We’ll meet at dusk, by the statue of the Saint of Sancre Tor.”

Nusha squinted at her, trying to figure out her game. The girl was probably just covering herself in the likely instance that she didn’t receive the help she sought.

“Fine. I will see you then.”

Before Nusha could leave, though, a guard approached them from the gate.

“Where have you two come from?”

Karme opened her mouth to speak but before she could, Nusha said, “Skingrad,” shooting her a look. There was no way this guard was asking out of pure curiosity.

“Good.” He took off his helmet and scratched his head with a gloved hand. “There’s been a murder in Bruma. A Dunmer woman killed her husband in cold blood, can you believe it?”

“Must be that northern wind,” Nusha said. “Drives a person mad.”

“Anyway, keep a lookout for anyone suspicious. The culprit disappeared without a trace. She could be anywhere.” He looked at Karme again, as if reconsidering his original appraisal.

Karme curtseyed to him and said in an even more obsequious voice than usual, “Thank you for informing us. We are merely travelling to Chorrol to sample the delicacies of Colovia.”

“You are, eh? How about I show you where to find the best wine?”

Nusha slipped away, glad that Karme’s looks had provided a distraction. She followed a lightly-treaded path through the forest. It led half a mile away from town, at which point Nusha saw the well that concealed the entrance to the Chorrol Sanctuary. Before she reached it, though, she heard a familiar voice.

“Greetings, Mudscales.”

Tun-Na dropped from the trees, landing in front of Nusha. He gazed down at her. She always felt tiny next to him, and she crossed her arms defensively.

“Greetings.”

Nusha’s history with Tun-Na was long and bitter. They had both been born under the sign of the Shadow, and thus taken from Black Marsh at a young age to be trained as Shadowscale assassins. They had never seen eye-to-eye, and while their relationship now was not openly hostile, a great deal of resentment bubbled under the surface.

“So how did your first assignment go?” Tun-Na asked. “I just finished mine.”

Tun-Na had been tasked with disposing of an old miser living in the Great Forest, whose son couldn’t wait for his inheritance. A quick job, by the sounds of it.

“Things have gone… differently than expected.”

Tun-Na grinned. “I heard about what happened in Bruma. Sounds like a real _disaster_.” He emphasised the last word, hissing his S’s like a snake.

“Not entirely. I have found a potential candidate for the Brotherhood.”

Tun-Na gave a raspy chuckle. “And where is this assassin of yours? Don’t tell me it’s that wispy Dunmer you rocked into town with.”

“It’s none of your concern.”

“Oh, Nusha, you never change. Did the Dark Elf whisper sweet words to you, tell you how she’s always fantasised of joining the Brotherhood? You always were susceptible to foolishness. Tell me, is this what your great prophecy predicted?”

Nusha felt a strong urge to wring Tun-Na’s neck. Just hearing his voice elicited a deep, dark loathing in her, a reaction built up over years of childhood torment.

“Move aside, Tun-Na, so I may go and make my report.”

“By all means.”

Tun-Na stepped aside, waving his hand for Nusha to pass. She stomped past him and climbed into the well, not looking back.

The Chorrol Sanctuary bore a great similarity to the one in Leyawiin. It seemed that the architects in the Brotherhood did not possess much creativity. It was gloomy and oppressive, all stone columns and curved low ceilings, with skull-shaped candelabras and obscure runes etched into corners. After speaking the password to the bloodstained door, which had always come across as childish to Nusha, she was greeted in the foyer by a representative and taken into an office to make her report.

Nusha kept things brief. She told them that she had arrived to find Svaknal already dead, and the amulet stolen, and that she had to take a slow route out of town to avoid the moneylenders. The representative nodded curtly, wrote down some notes, and told her to return to Leyawiin, with no indication of whether she would be reprimanded.

She would have to make sure Karme left town before anyone found out about her lie, but that seemed easy enough.

Nusha strode out of the office, eager to leave this dark place. But she stopped after only a few paces, turning to see a figure leering at her from the corner, a mischievous grin planted on his face. Leaning against the wall, having listened to every word she had said, was Tun-Na.

“See you in Leyawiin, Nusha,” he said, before scurrying out of the Sanctuary.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karme seeks an audience with the Countess of Chorrol and has a chance encounter with a strange Altmer.

“I request an audience with Countess Arriana Valga.”

The castle guards blinked at her. She cleared her throat and repeated herself.

“I request an audience wi—”

“We heard you the first time. But you can’t just waltz in here expecting to see the countess immediately. You’ll have to make an appointment. She’s very busy, you know.”

Karme scowled, and the right guard winced as if he expected her to scream at him.

“Fine. When is she available?”

“You’ll probably have to wait a few days.”

“A few _days_? You misunderstand, this is a matter of absolute importance.”

The guard on the left rubbed his chin. “In that case you can speak to the steward. If he deems it important enough, he’ll grant you an audience.”

“Thank you.”

One of them went to fetch the steward and she sat down on a wooden bench, preparing her speech: “My name is Karme Arenim, of House Hlaalu in Morrowind, and I—”

“I present to you Orok Gro-Ghoth, steward of Castle Chorrol.”

She jumped, having zoned out, and stood up to greet him.

“I am Karme Arenim, of House Hla…”

A male Orc of diminutive size, dressed in blue and green, stood before her.

“Yes, milady?” he said.

An _Orc_? The castle steward was an Orc? Karme laughed nervously, and bit the insides of her mouth. This was an insult, but it was an insult that she was going to have to swallow if she wanted help.

She could see the two guards she’d spoken to in the corner of her eye, whispering and sniggering about her.

“Perhaps you would like to come to my office, where we can speak more comfortably,” he said.

Karme put on her best smile and followed him through the castle.

Once they were in his room, sat down on either side of his desk, Karme found it even harder to take him seriously. The green shirt he wore matched his skin almost perfectly, giving a strange illusion of semi-nakedness, and he looked at her with such a _serious_ expression. She had never known an Orc personally, because in her experience they were stoic warriors, or lived in a muddy ditch far away from civilised society.

She cleared her throat and steeled herself. This wasn’t the captive audience she had expected—the bereaved countess would surely have been much more susceptible to her emotional tale—but she would just have to make do.

“I do apologise for taking up your precious time. Only, I have nowhere else to turn…”

She began her story, emphasising the hardships she faced travelling through Cyrodiil: the banditry, the rejection at every turn from the Mages’ Guild, and her arrival in Bruma, hungry and desperate. She wove the tale of how a foul Nord tricked her, and it was only with the help of a runaway Argonian slave that she was able to escape his clutches and flee to Chorrol (here she left the details sufficiently vague to avoid any association of her with the murdered Nord). Orok Gro-Ghoth remained impassive throughout. When she finished, he stretched his hands out on the table, as if weighing up several options.

“And what do you think the court of Chorrol can do for you?”

Karme cursed herself inwardly for not acting the part well enough. Surely any decent mer would see that she needed shelter?

“I only ask that you provide me a safe haven, so I am not cast out into the wilderness with nowhere left to go. I have some… talents which might prove useful, and I would gladly repay the favour however I could.”

“What talents?”

Her shy, deferent maiden role was being mercilessly countered by the Orc’s straight-forward approach. Karme decided to drop it and be upfront.

“I have been educated on history, geography, astronomy, and magic, as is standard for a woman of my class.”

He perked up at the mention of magic. “We already have a castle mage, but who knows, she might be looking for an apprentice. Otherwise, I’m afraid we don’t have any use for your academic skills. Come, I’ll introduce you to our mage.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!”

“Don’t get your hopes up. She’s the solitary type. I’ll be honest with you. Your most likely bet is to find work cleaning up sick in The Grey Mare, and failing that, to get out of town. We don’t need any more homeless people or pickpockets around here. Consider that a warning.”

Karme stood up and bowed as humbly as she could, a thousand unpleasant words coming to mind. Orok Gro-Ghoth took her out of the office and lead her down a series of winding corridors until he reached a particular wooden door and knocked on it.

A Redguard woman with a dense afro opened the door, clearly irritated by the interruption. “What is it?”

“Chanel, this is Karme Arenim. She’s looking for work, and claims to have skills in magic. I was wondering if you might take her on as an apprentice.”

She looked Karme up and down with a critical eye. Karme couldn’t help but focus on a smudge of white paint on her cheek. She was tempted to mention her interest in art, but aside from a few years’ painting she had done as a child, she had never seriously pursued it, and she had a feeling this woman would not be impressed.

“What school do you specialise in?” Chanel asked.

“Destruction. Fire, mainly.”

Chanel rubbed her face, and then, finding the paint on it, took on a guilty look.

“I’m sorry, Orok, but I really don’t have time to be teaching children to not set themselves on fire.” She turned back to Karme and composed herself, asking in a sweeter tone, “Do you have any skills in alchemy?”

Karme opened her mouth, ready to lie, but stopped. What was the point? Her lack of ability would make itself clear within hours. She’d shunned alchemy as a child, not wanting to get her hands dirty picking mushrooms. What a fool she’d been!

“I’ll take that as a no. I’m sorry, but in all honesty there’s not much work to go round here. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

She shut the door without another word. Orok gave Karme a look of I-tried-my-best and lead her back to the foyer.

Karme whiled the rest of the day away in a similarly unsuccessful fashion. She half-followed Orok Gro-Ghoth’s advice, going to the more upmarket inn, The Oak and Crosier, to ask if they had any work available. To her dismay, the well-dressed Khajiit publican eyed her with disdain and said that they “had no need for a scullery maid at this time”. She didn’t stoop to enter The Grey Mare, a beat-up tavern with a rough clientele, but instead enquired at the chapel, where the Primate gave her the cold shoulder.

It wasn’t until Karme caught her reflection in a shop window that she realised just how grubby she looked. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and pine needles had lodged themselves in several places in her hair. She blushed, remembering how she’d marched confidently into the castle. No wonder they were so amused.

Finally, dejected and exhausted, she returned to the statue near the town gates to await Nusha. The sun was creeping lower in the sky, and citizens were already heading home from work, or stopping by at The Grey Mare, which she could see—and smell—from where she stood.

“Evening.”

Karme jumped. Somehow two large Orcs had crept up beside her. With horror, she recognised them as some of the moneylenders who were after Svaknal. Had they really come all this way in search of her? She hoped her bedraggled state would act as a disguise.

“What is it?” she said. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

She hoped that might deter them, but they sat down beside her on the stone wall, leaning back casually. They were both clad in leather armour, and maces dangled menacingly at their waists. Karme cast an eye to the city gates, where two guards stood, but they weren’t paying attention.

“That’s a nice necklace you’ve got,” one of the Orcs said.

“Thank you,” Karme muttered.

“What brings a Dunmer to Chorrol?” the other asked.

She avoided looking at them, hoping her indifference would send them away. She had seen a fair amount of mer and beastfolk in this city, but not many Dunmer specifically. In other words, she stuck out.

“I live here,” she said firmly.

“Oh really? Where in town?”

Karme grunted. “I would rather not tell you.”

The Orc got up and stood in front of her, so she couldn’t look away. “You look like you’ve been on quite a trip. You sure you’re from here?”

The Orc was blocking her view of the guards, preventing her from signalling for help.

“I was foraging for mushrooms in the forest,” she said. There was a noticeable quiver in her voice.

“Find any good ones?”

“Y-yes, I—”

“Excuse me.”

An Altmer in a black cloak stepped between her and the Orcs, staring up at the much taller and wider man with surprising confidence.

“What do you want?”

The High Elf smiled. “I believe I overheard you talking about mushrooms. I’m quite an alchemist myself, so I thought I might enquire as to where I could find the best ingredients around here.”

Karme breathed a sigh of relief. He was here to help, though the Orcs were looking at him with murderous intent, and she wasn’t sure this Altmer would put up much of a fight.

“We were just leaving,” one of the Orcs said.

They gave Karme a look and trudged off towards The Grey Mare.

“Thank you,” Karme said, once they were out of earshot.

“You’re very welcome. Why were those brutes accosting you?”

Karme looked down, avoiding his gaze. “Mistaken identity, I think. Some people aren’t used to seeing Dunmers. Think we all look the same.”

“A terrible plight. I find there is a huge difference in how I’m treated in the Imperial City as opposed to the less… cosmopolitan parts of Cyrodiil. The Summerset Isles are home for me. Always have, always will be.”

He spoke with a light, fey manner, giving Karme the impression that he very much liked the sound of his own voice and didn’t care whether others did as well.

“Perhaps you’d like to continue this conversation over a glass of Colovian brandy? At The Oak and Crosier, of course.”

He even held out his hand. Karme gave him a withering look.

“I’m waiting for my friend, I’m afraid. Perhaps another time.”

“Ah, yes. I am sure we will meet again. I am Landil. Landil Aelsinor.”

“Karme,” she replied. She then regretted not giving a fake name.

“A lovely name. Good evening, Karme.”

He bowed to her and headed to the inn.

“I hope we _don’t_ meet again,” she muttered.

Karme shivered, and not just from the cold. The day’s light was fading, and there was still no sign of Nusha. The town was growing quiet now, with only the buzz of the inns and the murmur of the guards filling the air. Speaking of which, the two guards by the main gate were watching her. Probably wondering if she was homeless. She got up and walked behind the statue while she considered what to do.

The idea occurred to her that Nusha might have already left, having no intention of travelling further with Karme. She couldn’t blame her for that. But she thought Nusha might have at least said goodbye.

Well, there was no sense in waiting around if that was the case. She got up and headed for the city gates. Good riddance to bad company.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skeletons attack! Nusha and Karme discover the amulet Karme holds does more than just glow ominously.

Tun-Na heard everything.

Nusha had been wandering through the forest for hours now. It was getting dark, but still she pushed onwards, as if pursued by her own fears.

It wasn’t the end of the world. She tried to tell herself that. Tun-Na’s word was hardly praised highly. They might think he was just trying to sabotage her.

But Nusha knew that they were waiting, in the Sanctuary in Leyawiin, for her to fail. Her whole life up until now had been a long series of failures, with only a brief interlude in the past few years, since she had the vision. But now Sithis had forsaken her, the path had grown dark, and she was teetering on the precipice of being cleansed from the Brotherhood entirely. Failing a mission was one thing, but lying about it? That merited serious retribution.

She imagined the faces of her instructors, those who’d lorded over her as she grew up: Preceptors Meerzal, Reenul, and Dreet-Shei, a trio of formidable and unforgiving Argonians. It would merely be a confirmation of her inherent worthlessness to them. But Preceptor Lazz, the sole Orc in the Dark Priory, an outsider along with Nusha, had always believed in her. How would she react when she found out about Nusha’s deception?

The longer Nusha tortured herself with these questions, the further Tun-Na got to Leyawiin. She knew this, and yet every time she considered making chase, to try and beat him there, she froze, unable to work past the chilling feeling that it didn’t matter. Even if she got there first, it was only a matter of time before they grew tired of her slip-ups. The severity of her failure in Bruma was fully hitting her now, and she had nothing to hold onto, nothing to stop her from falling down the great abyss of self-loathing she had spent so much of her adolescence in.

A scream sounded in the forest. Nusha looked around dumbly, not sure if she had imagined it. It came again though, this time with words: “Get away from me!”

It was Karme’s voice.

Nusha ran towards her, sprinted with all her might, propelled by the opportunity, the need, to take away her own pain by helping another.

Nusha broke into a clearing and saw what Karme was screaming at. Seven, no, eight skeletons, clad in helmets, wielding foreign, curved blades, leered towards them. One of them had its hand round Karme’s neck, and she flailed desperately to free herself.

Nusha acted without thinking. She jumped at the skeleton, tackling it to the ground. Where she had expected to meet fragile, brittle bones, she was hit by a surprisingly sturdy figure. The skeleton reacted quickly, digging its hands into Nusha’s eyes. She poured out a fountain of expletives and grabbed its head, twisting it off and tossing it aside. To her disgust, the arms kept moving, and it took all her strength to wrest them off her.

Karme was faring better now, tossing warning fireballs at the creatures, but four of them were surrounding her, making bloodcurdling snapping noises as they approached.

Nusha cursed. There was no flesh for her weapons to make a purchase, no poison that would slay them. She turned round to take the helmet off the downed skeleton’s head, figuring she could use it as a club, and came face-to-face with a reconstructed skeleton warrior.

She blinked twice. It had somehow reattached its head, and to top it off it had retrieved its weapon, too.

Nusha feinted, then kicked the skeleton in the stomach.

“It’s no use!” she cried. “They can reform. We have to run.”

Karme nodded, and send out a wave of flames in both directions. The skeletons hissed, stumbling back, just long enough for the two of them to make a break for it through the trees. Nusha had never felt this scared in her life. Her heart beat like a drum in her ear, her ragged breath burned in her chest, and her legs felt like jelly. But she could still hear the skeletons wheezing and clicking, and she wasn’t going to stop until they were well, well away.

They broke out of the trees, the city walls visible in front of them.

Nusha started to cry out for the guards, but Karme shouted “No!” at her.

“They’re drawn towards the amulet.”

They dashed to the stables, hopped over the fence, and got on their horses. The owner came out complaining about their bad attitude, but when Karme screamed at her to open the gate, she relented and let them go.

They galloped east, the night wind streaming in their faces. They had only the moon to guide them, but they pushed the horses onwards, riding non-stop for over an hour, until they were sure that the skeletons were far behind them.

Karme pointed to a stream, and they dismounted to water the horses.

“Okay, what on _Nirn_ were those?” Nusha asked, once her head had stopped spinning. “And what was that about the amulet?”

Karme pulled it out from underneath her shirt. The ruby in the centre was glowing an ugly, violent red now, like a wart about to burst.

“The one that attacked me, it was trying to remove it. It must be some kind of homing beacon for them.”

“Wonderful. And you can’t take it off. Who would design something so sadistic?”

“Akaviri, I think.”

“Sorry?”

Karme knelt by the stream and took a drink. Nusha told herself off for shouting at the girl. It wasn’t her fault, really.

“What makes you think it’s Akaviri?” she asked, more calmly.

“For one thing, the Countess of Bruma wanted it. She collects Akaviri artefacts. In fact, that was part of the reason Svaknal was so poor. When he refused to hand it over, she ruined him.”

“But it never displayed this… propensity to summon skeletons before?”

“No. I think Svaknal’s death must have activated it. But those skeletons were Akaviri, I’m sure. They were wielding katanas.”

For once, Karme’s education seemed to have been of use, though Nusha mused to herself that it didn’t matter if they could identify them, because at the end of the day the skeletons were still going to try and kill them.

“The thing is, if they’re Akaviri, they probably came from Pale Pass.”

“Where’s that?” Nusha asked. She felt ignorant, but she supposed there was no reason for her to know all this. They had been educated at the Priory, but the subjects had been much more practical.

“Near Bruma. The precise location is lost. If these skeletons came all the way from there, though…”

“They won’t stop pursuing us until they have the amulet back. Is that correct?”

Karme nodded with a grim expression. Nusha crouched down beside her. She eyed the water suspiciously before taking a drink, as if it might be poisoned.

“Sounds like you could do with some help.”

Karme looked at her pleadingly. Unlike her previous requests, Nusha actually felt some compassion for her this time.

“I’ll help you figure out what this amulet is, and how to get rid of it, on one condition. You come with me to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary in Leyawiin. You don’t have to join, just… keep an open mind?”

Karme smiled. “Won’t I have to die if I find out all your secrets?”

“I’ve probably told you enough to warrant being purified myself.”

“Purified? They’ll give you a bath?”

Nusha rolled her eyes and nudged her with her elbow. “Sorry, that’s no-good-penny-pinching-moralless-cutthroat speak. Wouldn’t expect you to understand it.”

Nusha felt an odd feeling inside. Eventually, she realised it was happiness. At making a friend, or at least making friendly conversation. It must’ve just been the adrenaline from their encounter with the skeletons, she decided.

Karme got up and went back to her horse, and Nusha tried to clear her head, stop thinking about frivolities. Being enemies with someone was easy. But friends you could disappoint.

* * *

Landil muttered curses all the way through the Altmeri pantheon. He had lost the girl.

Somewhere, between The Oak and Crosier and the outskirts of town, she had slipped away. Landil stalked up and down the path outside of Chorrol, careful to not attract the attention of the guards. The only place she could have logically gone was into the forest, but why? At this time of night it was downright foolish to go wandering off.

Maybe she had realised he was following her, and made a run for it. He eyed the stables nervously. He hadn’t thought to note which horse had belonged to her. By the Blue Divide, how had that effete Dunmer given him the slip?

She was wearing the amulet. The amulet that he’d ordered the Dark Brotherhood to collect, the entire reason he was so far from home, up to his neck in arrogant Imperials and testy Orcs.

It was sheer luck that he had even managed to track her this far. He had arranged to collect his bounty from a representative near Chorrol. When they told him the amulet had yet to arrive, he panicked, thinking the moneylenders had taken it. But not long after he saw the Dunmer wandering around town, and everything clicked into place.

He didn’t have time to be dawdling here. He marched to the stables, collected his horse, and rode east. There was only one road to the Imperial City, and if he did not chance upon her, he would turn back. Several hundred yards down the road, he heard a noise and pulled the horse to a stop.

It was a most curious sound, like the creaking of an old door, but higher pitched, and accompanied by crablike snapping noises. Landil dismounted and stepped warily into the trees, whispering an illumination spell as he went.

The light broke through the black, and Landil almost fell backwards in surprise. Mere metres away from him, stalking through the undergrowth, were a band of armed skeletons. When he saw that they paid no attention to him, his fear turned to curiosity.

Waving his arms in the air, he uttered an incantation, willing the soldiers to obey his command. They continued to march doggedly east, ignoring his spell. He tried a spell of calm, thinking a different school of magic might work better, but the skeletons remained unperturbed.

East. They must be heading for the Imperial City, he thought. He moved carefully towards them, in case they suddenly decided he was indeed a foe, and examined them up close. Those helmets, along with those swords, could only come from one source. Akaviri warriors.

Could this be it? The power of the Amulet of Bonebreath? He had spent so many hours poring over books, following obscure references, translating fragments. The power of the thing was mythical, but now that he saw its effects up close, he couldn’t quite believe it.

If they were heading east, they were likely following the amulet. And that meant that wherever the skeletons went, his prey wouldn’t be far ahead.

Landil grinned like a child during New Life Festival. There was no escaping him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's left kudos so far! What do you think is going to happen next in the story?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha tells Karme about her past with the Dark Brotherhood.

This was not what Karme had expected from the Imperial City.

Why exactly they had come here, she was beginning to wonder. Nusha had been sceptical, but Karme was sure that the answer to their quandary lay within the walls of the city. Her parents had spoken of it in mythical terms when she grew up, as a place of prosperity and commerce, a crossroads for all the races of Tamriel to exchange items and ideas.

On her previous visit she had only briefly seen the sights, before going to the Arcane University to request membership in the Mages’ Guild. The whitewashed story of the city had fooled her that time, but now, dragged through the loud, messy chaos of the Market District, Karme was struggling to reconcile the reality of city life with her glorified image.

She didn’t understand how it could smell this bad. In Vivec, there was a complicated system of running water and sewage to ensure an acceptable level of hygiene, given the difficulties presented by the unique architecture. The Imperial City, being open to the air, would be easy to keep fresh, she thought. Instead, the Market District smelt like every horse, child, and Khajiit in Cyrodiil had done their business there.

At least inside The Feed Bag the odour of hops and the loud buzz of drunken chatter provided a distraction. They ordered two big bowls of potage, which Karme eagerly wolfed down, but it didn’t hold a candle to saltrice and scuttle from home. She wondered what had become of her parents, but that line of thinking only led to despair, so she spoke to Nusha instead.

“So,” she said, taking a swig of ale and grimacing at the clearly watered-down taste. “I’ve told you all about myself, but I still don’t know much about you.”

Nusha waved a claw. “Not important. I’m just a lowlife, like you said.”

“I’m not taking that for an answer,” Karme said. “You’re a Shadowscale, aren’t you? There _must_ be some fascinating tales you have to tell.”

Nusha choked on her drink, looking around to see if anyone had overheard Karme. But the patrons were all wrapped up in their own conversations.

“Fine, if it’ll stop you from blurting out my identity to everyone. What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Your childhood, what it’s been like working for the Br—I mean, the organisation which you work for.”

Nusha grinned. “Svaknal was my first assignment.”

Karme gawped, and hid her face in her flagon. “So I ruined your first job?”

“Don’t worry. I would’ve messed it up somehow. I’ve always been a failure.” She stretched, cracking her knuckles. Karme wondered if she’d ever talked to anyone about her past before.

“There’s a priory, near Leyawiin, where they raise us. Those of us born under the sign of the Shadow, those that are deemed ‘worthy’, are taken away at about five years of age from Black Marsh. I was some kind of fluke. The representative who picked me out insisted there was something special about me, maybe just because of my unique colouring, but the other preceptors at the Priory all thought I was a runt.”

Karme examined Nusha more closely. Her pigmentation was uniform black, with only her amber eyes to break it up. She hadn’t supposed it was unique to her, but it made sense for an assassin.

“I didn’t exactly fit in with the others. I was bullied for most of my childhood.”

“But why?”

Nusha gave her an incredulous look. Karme didn’t understand. She had never been bullied, and Nusha seemed like the sort who could stand up for herself.

“I’m a loser, Karme. By Shadowscale standards, anyway. You’ll figure it out once you get to know me better.”

An awkward pause filled the air. Karme spoke, if only to alleviate the silence. “So what did they teach you at the priory?”

Nusha sighed. “At first we were educated in how to read and write, geography, survival skills and so on. When we reached thirteen, we were transferred to the west wing of the Priory, where the older kids live. That’s where they teach you how to kill.”

“And did they stop bullying you?” Karme said hopefully.

Nusha sneered. “They figured out how to hide it better. Psychological torture instead of physical. By that time it was obvious that I was much weaker than all the others, and picking on me would’ve been seen as undue cruelty. I thought things might get better once we went to the west wing. I could just focus on training, block everything else out. But it was even worse. I failed at everything: archery, sneaking, alchemy. Eventually it became too much, so I ran away.”

“To where?”

“To Black Marsh. I thought I might as well die in my homeland, alone, than by failing the Brotherhood. It was a ridiculous idea. I had no more idea how to survive in Black Marsh than a Nord. I walked for days, slowly starving to death, sure that it was the end. Then I came across a Hist tree.”

“The Hist… They’re important to Argonians, aren’t they? Don’t you all lick them when you come of age or something?” She blushed at her forward remarks. She had studied a little Argonian physiology, but it wasn’t exactly taught with much respect or detail in Morrowind.

“Traditionally, yes, but those of us who grow up outside Black Marsh tend not to. There are various theories about how the Hist work, but it’s generally accepted that we have a link to them, even if we can’t feel it. This one was strong, though. When I found the Hist tree, I realised it had drawn me there, all the way from the Priory.

“I licked the sap of the tree and fell into a kind of trance. For twenty days and twenty nights I sat by that tree, meditating, hallucinating. Every few hours I would lick at it in a frenzy. I started to… go through changes.”

Nusha buried her maw in her flagon, and Karme realised that for the first time, she was embarrassed.

“What kind of changes?”

Nusha gave a gravelly _harrumph_. “Outside of Black Marsh, people have different ideas about _rixhi_. I suppose you’d call it ‘sex’.”

Karme frowned, unsure where this was going.

“I was born looking quite different. I went by ‘Gam-Jee’, a male Argonian name. When I licked the Hist, it changed me. Reformed my body. While I meditated there, my new name came to me: Nusha.”

Karme nodded slowly. She had heard people joke of such things, but she had always thought of it as racist speculation. She held her tongue, not wanting to make a foolish comment.

“I also had a vision,” Nusha said candidly. “It was unclear, impossible to describe. But somehow I knew it was from Sithis. We call him the Night Father. He watches over our organisation, and he was channeling himself through the Hist. He said I had a great destiny ahead of me, that I must return to the Priory and fulfil it.”

Nusha finished off the dregs of her ale and leant her head against her hand.

“At least, that was what I thought at the time. I did go back, trained as hard as I could, became decent in knife-throwing and sneaking—I have a natural advantage with my looks, after all. Everyone else thought I was stupid, delusional, to think that Sithis would speak directly to _me_. But the belief kept me going, until eventually I came of age and was given my first assignment.”

“And then I came in and ruined anything.”

Nusha shrugged. “It was bound to happen. They were right. I didn’t see Sithis. It was just a hallucination. It would’ve been better if I just died in Black Marsh.”

“Nusha. You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Nusha buried her face in her hands. “What else can I believe? I failed my first mission. I’m not cut out to do this. But I know too much to be let off alive.”

Karme rubbed her thumb against her flagon uneasily. She thought she had it hard, being separated from her family and forced out of her home. But Nusha had been through so much, and it might all have been for nothing…

“I won’t let them kill you.”

Nusha gazed at her with bemusement. “Right. I’m sure they’ll listen to you.”

“They might, if they find out I’m the reason you failed your mission. Don’t you think?”

Karme had the feeling Nusha was about to tell her _exactly_ what she thought of that, but before she could a loud cry came from the front of the tavern.

“Attention!”

A group of four Imperial battlemages had entered, and they stood in a line in beside the publican, grim expressions painted on their faces.

Half the patrons ignored them and kept on talking. The battlemage clapped his hands and an ear-piercing screech exploded through the room. All eyes turned to him.

“By order of Archmage Hannibal Traven, none may leave here until we have carried out a full search of the place. We are seeking a magical item. Its power is drawing undead creatures towards the city. If you hold the item, give yourself up now, and your life may be spared.”

The tavern exploded with noise. Several patrons jumped up and made a break for the door, only to be hit with a paralysis spell and land face-first on the grimy floor. Karme and Nusha shared a worried look, and Nusha pushed through the crowd, heading for a barmaid standing near the back. Karme hurried after her, holding her satchel tight against her chest.

“Is there a back way out?” Nusha said, holding out a fistful of Septims.

The barmaid nodded, and hurried them round to the basement door.

“What are we going to do?” Karme cried.

They walked down into the basement, past shelves and crates, until they reached a foul-smelling corner of the room. The barmaid shoved aside a crate to reveal a trapdoor.

“It leads to the sewers,” she explained. “There used to be lots of entrances, to help with maintenance. Most have been built over, but this one remains.”

“Are we _really_ going to have to go traipsing through the sewers?” Karme said. A wave of nausea hit her, and she had to take several deep breaths to prepare herself for what she was about to do.

“That or we walk straight into our deaths. It doesn’t smell that bad to me.”

“Then I can only conclude that Argonians have a poor sense of smell.”

Nusha opened the trapdoor to reveal a ladder that quickly disappeared into darkness.

“Don’t suppose you know any light spells?”

“I never thought I’d _need_ illumination magic.”

“Take a torch,” the barmaid said, pulling one out of a barrel and rapidly lighting it. “But be quick. Those mages might come in here at any moment.”

“Right,” Nusha said. “I’ll go first.” She climbed down in a matter of seconds.

Karme took a deep breath, whispered a prayer to Mephala, and followed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's left kudos so far! And sorry this chapter is late! I had a job interview on Friday and then was away on the weekend. Next chapter will be up tomorrow as usual.
> 
> This chapter is very personal for me. I was really excited to write trans Argonian lore, and also it's where Karme and Nusha start to really bond. I had no idea originally that they would become this close! Also, is anyone else curious to try saltrice and scuttle? Just me?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha and Karme go on the run from the Imperial guard. Meanwhile, the Akaviri soldiers draw ever nearer.

Hieronymus Lex had seen a lot in his time as captain of the city watch. He’d apprehended a vendor who was poisoning his competition, he’d quelled a horde of goblins who attempted to invade the city through the sewers, and he’d watched the Thieves’ Guild grow in power, looming out of the shadows, threatening the honest, hard-working citizens who called the Imperial City home.

But never had he seen anything like this.

Over the horizon, a band of ten skeletons approached the gates. They had tried all manner of attacks: arrows, catapults, spells. Nothing could stop them. Even when broken apart into dozens of pieces, the foul necromancy that powered them drew the bones together, repaired the damage and sent the skeleton lurching forward once more.

A barricade had been set up at the end of the bridge leading into the city, and a troop of the finest guards had been mustered. But how could they defeat that which does not die? Hieronymus looked on with a grim mien, weighing up different options, trying to figure a way out of this mess. Nobody spoke, and the eerie wails and creaks of the skeletons grew steadily louder as they approached.

Hieronymus saw movement in the trees a few metres away from the skeletons. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if fatigue had gotten to him. But no, there was… a person? A man draped in a dark cloak strode forward, parallel to the skeletons.

“Halt, in the name of the emperor!” Hieronymus cried.

The figure either didn’t hear, or chose to ignore him. A few seconds later, he held up his hands, indicating he held no weapon. I’m not that foolish, Hieronymus thought. He was likely controlling the skeletons.

“You three,” he said, addressing the guards nearest to him. “Go and apprehend that man. Bring him here.”

They looked at the captain with horror. “But Sir, the skeletons…”

“Are not attacking him. So they won’t attack you, either.”

It was a gamble. Either this man had information for them, or he was the necromancer responsible for the undead soldiers, in which case they might be able to negotiate.

The guards moved timidly forward, stopping every few seconds to make sure a skeleton hadn’t snuck up on them. But true to Hieronymus’s word, they stayed in their group, ignoring the men. They took the cloaked man’s arms and marched him quickly behind the barricade. He was thrust on his knees before Hieronymus, and his hood pulled back to reveal an Altmer with thinning blond hair.

“Who are you?” Hieronymus demanded.

“I am Landil Aelsinor. A humble mage from the Summerset Isles. I come bringing information about these creatures.”

Hieronymus grit his teeth. This could all be a diversion, but what choice did he have?

“Alright. Stand up and tell me what you have to say.”

“They are undead Akaviri soldiers, come to retrieve an amulet that belonged to their master. The Amulet of Bonebreath, it is called.”

The Archmage had said that it was likely an artefact of power drawing the skeletons to the city. Hieronymus hated to admit it, but he had been right.

“And this amulet is in the city?”

“I believe so. It acts as a homing beacon, drawing the soldiers towards it.”

Hieronymus eyed the man suspiciously. Clearly he knew more than he was letting on.

“Why? And who owns this amulet?”

“Why? I am not sure. I have various theories…”

Hieronymus gazed severely at him, and he did not elaborate.

“As to who: a Dunmer woman. She is young, and accompanied by a dark-scaled Argonian. I have been trailing them from Chorrol, but it seems my attempts to avert this catastrophe have been for naught.”

The Altmer raised his eyebrows at Hieronymus, as if he expected a reward for his help.

“Thank you for the information, citizen. We will handle things from here. Go and find refuge. Corellus! I have a message for the Arcane University.”

The Altmer scowled and slunk away as Hieronymus handed out orders. The skeletons were almost at the barricade now. They would have to hold out until this amulet could be found.

By Akatosh, he would not let his city fall to these fiends.

* * *

“You know, it’s not nearly as bad as I expected.”

Nusha snorted at Karme’s comment. “What, did you think it would be a shower of excrement? There has to be some way for them to perform maintenance.”

As long as they kept to the stone pathways and bridges and tried to ignore the foul-smelling sludge that flowed through the canals below them, it was manageable. Nusha had known that one day she would end up creeping through a sewer. It was often the only way to assassinate high-profile targets in the Imperial City without being caught. She hadn’t expected to use it as an escape route with a Dunmer woman in tow, granted, but life was full of surprises.

“Where are we going?” Karme asked.

“What, you think I have a map of the sewage system? We’re going somewhere else, and hopefully by the time we surface people will have calmed down about the whole skeleton thing. I’m sure they’ve already been captured by the guard.”

Nusha’s voice betrayed her doubt, though. The creatures had made quick progress from Chorrol, and judging by their restorative abilities, they wouldn’t be easy to down. Besides, if the guard knew that the skeletons were essentially providing a breadcrumb trail to her and Karme, they would be in even deeper dung than they were right now.

“You sure you can’t remove that necklace?” Nusha muttered.

“I’ve tried a hundred times. The chain is growing smaller, I swear. And it’s glowing brighter. We need to figure out how to get rid of this thing, and fast.”

“Do you know of any necromancers in the city?” Nusha asked hopefully.

She reasoned that they would be the kind to know about the amulet. But with the Archmage’s recent ban on necromancy, they were going to have to go underground. Nusha kept hoping that they would turn a corner to find a necromancer’s secret lair, but all they found was bats and skeevers.

“No,” Karme said. “But I heard about a merchant, a guy with a shop in the Market District. He had really cheap wares, until it was found out that his goods were gotten from grave-robbing. His supplier was a necromancer, I believe.”

“The Market District?” Nusha groaned. “We’ve been walking away from there for almost an hour now.”

That was the least of their worries, though, as they turned a corner and a gush of wind greeted them, extinguishing Nusha’s torch with a _thwick_.

Karme cried out and Nusha shushed her.

“We’re near one of the exits. Hold my hand, I’ll guide you.”

Nusha realised now just how strongly the amulet was glowing. An eerie red sheen came off the Dunmer, like a magical aura. Despite this, it was too weak to see more than a few inches in front of it, as if the air around it was thick with fog.

Nusha dropped the torch and took Karme’s trembling hand. It was coated with sweat, which managed to nauseate her in spite of the already unsavoury surroundings. Argonians did not sweat, and she wondered how on Nirn men and mer dealt with it.

Another advantage of her physiology was the superior eyesight she possessed to Karme’s. Not on the level of a Khajiit’s, of course, but enough for her to make out the vague silhouettes of the steps that lead to the surface. They carefully ascended and pulled open the manhole cover. The hazy glow of gas lamps poured onto them, and Nusha squinted, climbing out of the hole and helping Karme up.

They stood in a narrow alcove, barely big enough to fit two people, separated from the street by a locked iron gate.

“Great, how are we going to get out?” Karme muttered.

“Shh!”

Nusha pressed herself against the wall and Karme followed suit. The sound of an approaching battlemage came from the distance, and Nusha could just see two silhouettes convening in the street beyond them.

“Any luck?”

“No, but we’ve received extra intel from the University. The amulet is held by a Dunmer woman, accompanied by a female Argonian with black scales.”

Nusha felt Karme take in a sharp breath, but she gave her a look that said “Don’t move an inch”. The battlemages complained about working overtime, and then left to continue the search. One of them came towards them, whistling, and walked within inches of the gate. Nusha readied a knife, calculating the angle at which she could throw it through the bars, but thankfully the mage passed by without noticing them.

Once she was sure the coast was clear, Nusha turned to Karme.

“Don’t suppose you know any unlock spells, then?”

Karme shook her head. Nusha shrugged and climbed over the iron gate, dropping down onto the street below. Karme struggled to do the same, and Nusha hissed at her to hurry up. She flopped onto the ground, stifling a cry of pain, and Nusha whisked her into an archway.

“Which district are we in?” Nusha said.

“This is, um…”

Karme stuck her head out.

“The Talos Plaza District. Look, there’s the statue of him in the middle, there.”

She pointed to the centre of the square, where the silhouette of a dragon stood surrounded by columns. Nusha raised a finger to her chin and gazed dubiously at her.

“Isn’t that Akatosh?”

“Yes, yes.”

“That means we’re two districts away from the Market District.”

Karme looked crestfallen. Nusha wasn’t feeling confident, either. On a normal day it would take most of an hour to get there, but hiding from the guards?

“Maybe we should try and go through the sewers,” Karme suggested.

Nusha shook her head. “We don’t have a light. Look, you’re going to have to follow my lead and hope we don’t get caught. Take off your shoes, you’ll be quieter that way.”

Karme reluctantly did so, muttering something about how she’d never be clean again.

“You’re sure this guy lives in the Market District?” Nusha asked, scoping out the street ahead of them.

“Positive. The Copious Coinpurse, that’s the name of his shop.”

“Then we better hope he’s at home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading along! I'd love to hear comments about what you think of my story.
> 
> Sneaking through sewers seems to happen surprisingly often in fantasy. I don't think I could manage it myself! But having played Oblivion, there don't seem to be many other ways to get around the Imperial City while avoiding the guards. Have you guys played Oblivion? I feel like a lot of people have only played Skyrim.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha and Karme seek the help of a necromancer to get rid of the Amulet of Bonebreath.

Karme had never been this exhausted. In the last day they had fled from vicious skeletons, traipsed through the underbelly of the Imperial City, and were now sneaking from street to street, dodging guards and battlemages.

She had to give credit to Nusha. Sneaking was definitely her strong suit. On more than one occasion Karme had wanted to push on, slip down a street that to her looked entirely empty. Nusha simply shook her head, indicating the faint silhouette of a guard in the distance that she would have never seen. To make things worse, the battlemages had started using detect life magic to hone in on their target, and it was only by submerging themselves in sluiceways and pretending to be skeevers that they managed to avoid detection.

To get past the guarded gates separating each of the districts, they’d had to take brief detours into the sewers, stepping carefully in the dark.

By the time they reached The Copious Coinpurse the sun was beginning to rise, and the citizens, who had been locked inside homes and taverns all night, were restless, no longer willing to tolerate this disruption to their everyday routine.

Nusha knocked on the door, and a beady-eyed Bosmer opened it, demanding to know who they were.

“We’re here for information,” Nusha said. “About your necromancer.”

Karme held up the amulet and the Wood Elf’s eyes boggled. He hurried them inside and shut the door behind them.

“I really wish people would stop talking about that,” he said. “I acquire my goods honestly now.”

He eyed the amulet nervously as he spoke.

“We know,” Nusha said. “But the necromancer you previously worked with was never caught, was he? You better tell us where to find him, before the guards arrive here and find out you’re providing sanctuary to the two criminals who are threatening the city.”

His eyes bulged. “So it’s true? That amulet is what’s causing…?” He groaned and rubbed his temples. “Very well. I can’t promise she’s still there, but when I worked with Avranu, she lodged in the Elven Gardens District, in the abandoned house on the eastern edge.”

Karme’s heart stopped. “Avranu? She’s a Dunmer?”

No true Dunmer would practise necromancy. It was a desecration of the dead, an act of pure evil. But she was far away from Morrowind now, and perhaps this _n’wah_ had never had any respect for her ancestors in the first place.

“Thank you,” Nusha muttered. “We’ll be on our way.”

“Wait,” the Bosmer said.

He went into a drawer and pulled out a ring.

“This ring contains chameleon magic.”

To demonstrate, he put the ring on, and he immediately disappeared. Then he reappeared, having removed it.

“It only lasts ten seconds, but it should be enough to help you get past the guards. If you hold hands it will affect you both.”

Karme felt a surge of emotion. After such a dreadful night, this act of kindness from a stranger touched her deeply. “Oh, thank you!”

Nusha, on the other hand, glanced at him suspiciously. “Why are you helping us?”

The Wood Elf sighed. “I don’t know what exactly your situation is, but I do know what it’s like to be persecuted for something that isn’t your fault. And, no offence, but you two hardly seem the types to deliberately besiege the city.”

“We are most grateful,” Karme said, shooting a look at Nusha. The Argonian shrugged, and they headed out into the morning light.

With the help of the ring, they were able to slip past the guards standing at the gate to the Elven Gardens District. They had to wait until another citizen passed through and slip in behind them, but within minutes they were on the other side.

The city was now bustling with life, having shaken off the paranoia and fear of last night. Karme wondered if the Akaviri soldiers had been subdued, and she felt a weight leave her chest.

“Nusha,” she said, “do you think they stopped the skeletons?”

“Unlikely. The amulet is still glowing, for one thing.”

Karme’s heart sank once more. Nusha was ever the realist, but sometimes Karme wished she could be just a tad more optimistic.

“This is it,” Nusha said, stopping outside a house. The door and window were slightly more dilapidated than the rest, but it was hard to tell it apart from the others at first glance.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve heard rumours about the abandoned house in the Elven Gardens District. That it’s haunted. I guess they weren’t too far off. Do you reckon you could blast this door open? Actually”—she gave Karme a worrisome look—“maybe that’s not a good idea.”

“We could try knocking?” Karme suggested.

Nusha grinned. “Sure, why not?”

She rapped her knuckles three times on the door. There was the sound of creaking stairs, then a low wailing, barely perceptible at first, but which grew into a mournful howl.

“Oh come on,” Nusha said. “That’s obviously fake.”

She banged on the door a few times with her fist. They heard some muttered Dunmeri oaths, and the sound of someone coming to the door.

“Who dares approach the dwelling of the Dark One?” Avranu moaned. Karme realised she was imitating the husky, shamanic speech of the Ashlanders. And doing a fairly terrible job of it.

“We require information on an amulet,” Karme said in Dunmeri, “one which is causing chaos in the city.”

Avranu hesitated, clearly not expecting to be addressed in her own tongue. It sounded like she was licking her lips, a habit Karme detested. “Very well, I will give you the information you require, on one condition. You must bring me the skull of Fevari Llenrvi.”

Karme felt a wave of unease. “Another Dunmer?”

“A child.”

* * *

“It’s wrong!” Karme hissed. “We can’t kill a child, no matter how ‘vital’ it may be.”

Nusha didn’t respond. Karme could no longer see her face, as it was hidden behind a branch in the tree they were perching in. But she could feel Nusha’s disagreement seething out of her.

There was no way Karme would let her kill a child, a Dunmer girl, no less. If that was what Avranu needed for her to help them, they would just have to make do without her help.

Nusha had reacted to the news with a steely calmness, one that chilled Karme to the bone. She shouldn’t have been surprised; the Argonian was trained for this. But she had somehow expected that even the Dark Brotherhood would have standards.

Nusha eventually spoke. “What else can we do? They’re preventing anyone from leaving the Imperial City. We have no idea how to get rid of the amulet, and for all we know more Akaviri soldiers could be marching here from the north as we speak.”

While Karme had pondered over the moral dilemma placed before them, Nusha had collected gossip. Some palace guard had blabbed, and they were able to find out that the skeletons had not been quelled, but captured and penned in somewhere in the palace. The skeletons tried in vain to push against the walls holding them in, and they provided a compass to Karme and Nusha.

They were running out of time. Karme knew that. Guards still swarmed through the city, and they had undoubtedly pinned their location down to the Elven Gardens District.

“Does it matter?” Karme said. “Even if we find out how the amulet works, we’ll be trapped in the city.”

Nusha made a noise of discontented agreement. At least, that’s what Karme thought it meant. It could’ve just been her stomach.

“Look,” Nusha muttered softly.

Karme wasn’t sure what she meant, and tried to pick out what had caught her attention from the crowds of people below. Then she saw it.

Fevari Llenrvi could’ve been no older than eight, and she was skipping down the street with her parents, hand-in-hand. Karme’s chest twisted in pain, at the mere thought that somebody could wish harm on such an innocent creature.

“I’m going down there,” Nusha said.

“Don’t!” Karme cried.

“I’m not going to harm her. I’m going to try and find another way out of this. Wait for me here.”

Without another word, Nusha dropped from the tree and darted into the crowd. Karme was amazed at her ability to blend in amongst others, until she realised that she was making judicious use of the ring, activating it whenever a guard looked towards her.

Nusha didn’t approach the Dunmer family, though. Karme lost sight of her eventually, but she seemed to be looking for someone else.

Karme suddenly realised how tired she was, having been up all night, and she lay back against the tree, closing her eyes. She would just take a short rest.

“Wake up,” Nusha said.

Karme opened her eyes. It was dark. She bolted up and almost fell out of the tree.

“What’s going on?” she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

She could only see the end of Nusha’s snout from behind the branches, but the Argonian was smiling.

“I think I may have found a solution to our problem.”

“Really?”

“I found out Avranu’s reasons for wanting Fevari’s skull. Tell me, do you think you _could_ blast her door open? Without the guards seeing?”

Karme bit her lip. “We can try it with the ring.”

She would’ve liked to have slept more, but Nusha was jumping to the ground again, and she reluctantly followed, careful to not fall as she climbed down the tree.

There seemed to be far fewer guards and battlemages about now. Perhaps they were trying other districts, or perhaps they were busy keeping the skeletons locked up. At any rate, they were able to approach the ‘abandoned’ house without much difficulty. Karme slipped on the ring, crossed her fingers, and placed her hands on the door, focussing a blast of fire onto it.

There was a deep _thud_ , muffled by the ring and the heft of the door, and it fell forward.

“Perfect,” Nusha whispered. “She’s in the basement.”

Karme wasn’t sure how Nusha knew this, but she followed the Argonian down, taking a torch and lighting it on the way.

As soon as they opened the basement door a foul stench hit their noses: dirt, rat droppings, and rotten flesh. It was almost enough to make Karme turn right around, but Nusha pressed bravely on.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Karme had to avert her eyes. The chamber was gloomy, and horrific objects hung in every corner: dissected bodies, strung up like garlic, piles of bones, some ground into dust, and a shovel covered with fresh dirt and blood.

In the centre of the room, poring over a thick tome, was Avranu. She was perhaps the most shocking of all the horrors in the room, as she was far from the hunched, witchy figure Karme had expected, and was, apart from her straggly hair, quite beautiful.

She turned round and her lips contorted into a frown, as if she hadn’t noticed them come in.

“How did you—Never mind. Did you bring it?”

“No,” Nusha said, stepping forward. “I brought this instead.”

Nusha held out a letter, and Karme wondered what on Earth was going on. Avranu snatched it from her hands and scanned it quickly. Her hands trembled, clutching the letter so hard she might tear it apart.

“This is lies!” she hissed. “Where did you get this?!”

“It was penned by Thones himself, this very day.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

Avranu leapt at Nusha, her nails jabbing at her face. Nusha calmly grabbed her wrists, and pushed her back against the table.

“You know it is true. Stop tormenting the Llenrvi family, or I will kill you. And if I find out that you have caused them trouble after I leave the Imperial City, I will not rest until you are strung up just like that corpse over there.”

Nusha’s words chilled Karme to the bone. She knew the assassin had it in her, that dark severity that one needed to take another’s life. But to see it so fresh, so venomous, reminded her of the part of her that had been able to kill Svaknal, a side of herself she feared.

Nusha let Avranu go, and the necromancer let out a dry chuckle, her hands raising in front of her to cast a spell. “You threaten _me_? Master of life and death? You do not know what forces you play with.”

In a flash Nusha was on Avranu again, one hand pushing her back onto the table, the other holding a knife to her throat. Avranu gasped.

“Funny. It seems that right now, I’m the one with the power over your life.”

To make her point, she jabbed the tip of her knife against her neck, just enough to draw blood.

Avranu scowled, and raised up her hands in surrender. “Fine. I will leave the Llenrvis alone. But I warn you, the Worms will come for you…”

“Not important. Tell us about the amulet.”

Nusha gestured to Karme, and she reluctantly stepped forward. Gingerly she pulled the amulet out. Nusha leaned back, letting Avranu go, but kept the knife close. The necromancer took the amulet in her hand, dusty and calloused from grave-digging, and Karme shivered at her touch.

“The Amulet of Bonebreath… I thought it had been lost.” Her eyes lit up with the fervour of a scholar who had seen something only spoken of in old texts come to life. “It was designed by Mishaxhi, an Akaviri commander. Clever man. It is intended for his bloodline alone.”

“What do you mean?” Karme asked. She realised she was whispering. For all Avranu’s flaws, she had a way of captivating with her words.

“You cannot remove it, yes? The amulet has tested you, and finds your blood impure. You see, when someone of Mishaxhi’s bloodline—doubtlessly all dead by now—wears it, the soldiers obey them. In life and death everlasting. But when the amulet is wielded by one of impure blood, it draws the soldiers towards it, demanding the death of the one who would dare to steal from the Akaviri. A clever punishment.”

“But didn’t Svaknal have it before?” Nusha asked. “Why have the soldiers only come now?”

“It only started working after I killed him,” Karme said.

Avranu chewed thoughtfully on a nail. “Perhaps the magic lay dormant, requiring life energy to activate it. I could not say.”

“Regardless of that,” Karme said, suddenly wanting very much to be out of here, “how do we destroy it?”

She had decided by this point that getting it off her wasn’t enough. She wanted to make sure the wretched thing never bothered anyone ever again.

“You must return it to its owner,” Avranu said.

“Its owner?” Nusha said. “Isn’t Mishaxhi dead?”

Avranu smiled. “Yes… You may be able to return it to his body. Perhaps the amulet came back to life because he felt its presence, and he lives on somehow. Or perhaps he is gone, gone, and you will never be rid of it.”

Karme and Nusha shared an uneasy glance.

“Pale Pass is where he lies,” Avranu said.

Pale Pass. Of course. That was where the first Akaviri invasion of Tamriel was quelled, in a decisive battle. It was where the Countess of Bruma had wished her to go, to obtain some artefact for her.

“I guess we have no choice but to try,” Karme said. She was reluctant to leave without more information, but Avranu had already returned to her book, finished with her lecture.

“Fine,” Nusha said. She leant in close to Avranu. “Don’t forget our agreement.”

With that, they headed back up the stairs and out of the house.

Karme was about to ask Nusha what the letter was about when a hand clamped over her mouth, and her wrists were pulled behind her. Harsh torchlight shone in her face, illuminating the figures of grim-faced guards.

“We found them! Take them to the prison.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! A longer chapter today. I'm feeling very sleepy so I'm not going to leave a long comment. But I want to ask, what would YOU do if a creepy necromancer told you you had to kill a child? I think I'd have two choice words for her myself.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody escapes the Imperial Prison. But Nusha isn't just nobody.

At first, Nusha had plotted, trying to figure out a way to escape. But nobody escapes from the Imperial Prison.

Her cell lacked a window, and the open slit in the opposite cell only provided strong light for a few hours per day. She took to sleeping, drifting in and out of consciousness on the rough straw mattress, only waking to eat the stale bread given to her and to pace around the room.

It reminded her of her meditation in Black Marsh, when she had sat by the Hist tree for twenty days and twenty nights. But this time, she did not change, and she received no visions or insights. She was trapped here, plain and simple.

There were only two guards outside her cell. Clearly, they trusted the structure of the place to keep her under lock. Nusha worried for Karme, worried what they might do to the poor Dunmer girl who had the unfortunate chance to be captured by the amulet’s spell. Doubtlessly they would be torturing her, trying to extract the truth out of somebody who could not give it. They would not believe the Pale Pass story; the Empire had too many enemies for something like this to happen by mere chance.

Occasionally, Nusha would sit still by one of the walls, her ear pressed against it, listening for the sound of Karme’s cries, or perhaps the rattle of the Akaviri soldiers. But the prison was sealed off—perhaps Karme was being kept inside the palace itself—and Nusha only heard the flicker of torches and muttered conversation of guards.

Every few hours the guards switched over. Perhaps due to the strain put on them by the skeletons, Nusha was occasionally left alone during this time, only for half-an-hour or so. She had no faith in her abilities to escape, and indeed, they must have felt safe leaving her in the knowledge that none could make it out within that time.

One day, perhaps a week into her incarceration, something strange happened. While the guards were gone, the wall opposite Nusha began to shift. She scurried into the corner, watching warily as it slid aside, revealing a passage lit with pale blue lights.

Standing at the entrance to the passage was a face she never thought she would see again, an Argonian man with milky-white eyes and a smattering of battle scars.

“Meeran?”

She rubbed her eyes. She must be hallucinating. There was no way that _he_ was here.

“You’re not dreaming, Nusha. I’m here to rescue you.”

At the sound of Meeran’s voice, Nusha’s stomach twirled into knots. It sounded just as it had almost ten years ago, when she had first met him.

Nusha was an orphan, a wretch who simply showed up in a clutch of eggs in Black Marsh. The local nannies—old Argonians of varying gender who took care of hatchlings—looked after her, but gave her no preferential treatment. Meeran was the one who changed her life, chose her as a Shadowscale. As a representative of the Dark Brotherhood, he visited Black Marsh every year to pick out a fresh bunch of recruits, from those Argonians born under the sign of the Shadow.

Nusha didn’t understand how, but she’d _seen_ that moment. When she first licked the Hist that changed her form, she had fallen into a deep sleep, and watched Meeran’s journey through Black Marsh through his eyes. The dream confirmed what she had always suspected: she was a runt, rejected by her peers from birth, and Meeran was the only one who had seen something in her, a potential for a greater destiny.

Meeran had chosen her, and the urge to prove the other preceptors wrong, alongside the prophecy, was what lead to Nusha’s reawakening and return to the Priory. But ever since that day Meeran had been a murky presence in her mind, neither friend nor foe, saviour nor destroyer. She had wondered if he even existed at all, having only met him once at a tender age, and yet here he was, standing in the Imperial Prison, here to rectify the course of her ill-fated life once more.

“Why?” was all Nusha could muster.

“Now is not the time to talk. The guards will be here soon. There is a hidden passage away from the prison.”

Nusha stood up, stumbled forward, and hesitated. “What about Karme?”

“We will deal with her before we leave. Come now.”

Nusha followed Meeran into the cool passage. He pulled a lever and the wall slid back into place, as if the prison cell had never been there.

What did he mean by ‘deal with her’, Nusha wondered. She was too dazed to ask.

They walked down a series of intricately carved corridors, passing through airy chambers that evoked the great Ayleid construction this was once all a part of. Nusha felt as if she was a child in the east wing of the Priory again, being led to the preceptor’s office for punishment.

Eventually they reached a door and Meeran stopped. He spoke quickly and carefully to Nusha. “Beyond this corridor there is an interrogation chamber, where the Dunmer is being held. It was once a council room with several levels, and we will enter below the floor, in a part of the room that has been built over. I will move aside one of the tiles, and before the guards return, shoot her with a poisoned arrow.”

Nusha’s heart sank. So they weren’t going to save Karme, but kill her. Meeran pressed a finger to his lips and opened the door before Nusha could say a word.

It made sense. The Dark Brotherhood would not want this debacle to be linked to them, and in order to erase any trace of their involvement, they had to remove both Nusha and Karme. Nusha was sure a venom-tipped arrow awaited her in Leyawiin as well.

They crept into a dark space, bent over beneath heavy stone. There was a muffled noise coming from above, and Nusha eventually realised it was Karme crying. Meeran stepped forward, and a sliver of light spilt into the space as he moved aside the loose tile.

It was as if Nusha woke up, only just realising what was happening. She placed a hand on Meeran’s shoulder.

“The amulet will not cease to function if we kill her. The Akaviri soldiers will still—”

“That is not our concern.”

Nusha flinched. Meeran didn’t care if the skeletons lived on, broke out of their pen and wreaked havoc on the Imperial City. The Brotherhood was not concerned with saving lives, only taking them.

Meeran unsheathed his bow, and pulled the single arrow from his quiver. Gripping onto the wall for support, he pushed away the tile and climbed up. Karme stopped crying, and Nusha saw her chance.

She hurtled towards Meeran, slamming into his stomach. He gasped, the wind knocked out of him, and fell to the floor. Within seconds he had his knife in hand, but before he could use it, Nusha grabbed a piece of stone that had broken off the wall and slammed it down on his head.

Meeran jerked and fell still. Nusha examined his body, afraid he was dead, but found a steady pulse. She propped him up in a corner. Despite the fact that he was directly responsible for Nusha’s life in Brotherhood, she didn’t think he deserved to die for it. After all, it was she who had failed to make something of herself.

“Hello?” Karme called out from above.

Nusha climbed through the hole. The chamber was wide and circular, with a raised platform around the edge for interrogators to leer menacingly from. In the centre of the room was a grand, wooden chair, almost throne-like, but decorated in the shapes of thorns and vicious creatures. From behind the chair Nusha could make out Karme’s bound hand struggling against the armrest.

“Karme.”

Nusha walked round to her. If she had not known it was Karme, she might not have recognised her. The girl’s hair was mangy, singed and cut off in jagged sections, and her face had aged a decade. Her eyes no longer held the naïve youth of the girl she met in Bruma, and her form was painted with scars, and emaciated.

A fat tear sluiced down Karme’s cheek.

“Nusha… You came.”

Nusha smiled, but could not think of words. The sound of approaching guards came from the distance, and she hurriedly examined the ropes tied around Karme’s wrists and ankles. She’d need something sharp to get them off.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” she whispered, before slipping back down the hole. She searched desperately for a piece of stone that might work, until she remembered about Meeran. She took the two daggers she could find on him, as well as the bow and arrow for good measure.

Nusha returned to Karme, cutting the rope carefully to avoid hurting her. Karme stood up and almost fell back on the chair.

“Do you think you can walk?” Nusha said.

“I’ll have to.”

Her face took on a determined expression, one that was fresh to her. Nusha lead her through the hole and put the tile back in place, just as guards were rounding the corner to her cell.

She led Karme back through the corridor into the Ayleid ruins. She had expected Karme to gasp, ponder at the history of the place, but the ravaged, tortured girl had no energy for such frivolities.

“Where do we go?” she asked.

Nusha froze. She had absolutely no idea. She shook her head. They needed to get away. That was all that mattered. She pointed at the passage that wasn’t the one she had come from.

“This way.”

They walked for what felt like hours. Nusha constantly glanced over her shoulder, worried that a guard would show up at any moment, but it seemed they had no more knowledge of these passages than the rest of the city. How the Dark Brotherhood knew of them, Nusha wasn’t sure, but it did not surprise her.

Eventually they reached what seemed to be a dead end, until Nusha discovered an alcove with a manhole in the floor. She twisted it open, and a familiar, foul smell wafted towards them.

“Think you can handle more sewers?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a day late! Started at a new job this week so I've been pretty tired. This chapter's pretty dark. Poor Karme :(


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha and Karme make their way to Bruma to meet the Countess.

Karme expected to plunge into darkness, but the sewers were filled with a faint natural light, just enough to see by. Which could only mean one thing: they were almost to freedom.

Once she was sure they were safe, her emotions took over. Hot tears poured forth, putting the taste of salt on her lips.

“Nusha, I thought I’d never…”

“Shh,” was all Nusha said. “We’re almost out.”

Karme gulped and forced herself to be strong. After all, Nusha had come to rescue her, and it couldn’t have been easy for her. She had so many questions, not just about their capture, but about everything: about Nusha’s life, what she thought and felt.

The idea that haunted her the most, while she was held in that chamber, was that she would leave this life with Nusha hating her. It felt stupid, because after all, the Argonian had no reason to like or even trust her, but the thought that somehow she would make amends, become true friends with her when she got out, was what kept her from losing her mind.

And now she felt like she had been right, that her prayer had led Nusha to rescue her and led them both to freedom.

They followed the light through the sewer, with only the occasional skeever providing resistance. Nusha quickly dispatched of them, which relieved Karme, for the mere thought of trying to fight or use magic made her quiver.

When they reached the exit, emerging into a humid evening beside Lake Rumare, Karme collapsed to her feet. Nusha was instantly by her side.

“Are you okay?”

Karme could only mouth the word ‘water’. They had deprived her of food and drink in the prison, and the sight of so much water made her thirst even more apparent. She only needed to crawl to it…

“It’s not safe.”

Karme blinked, feeling as if Nusha had just slapped her in the face. Couldn’t she see the water? She needed it!

“The lake is filthy with pollution from the city. You’d get sick if you drank it.”

Karme made a dry groan, and lifted her arm up to Nusha. If she couldn’t drink from the lake, she didn’t know if she would make it. The stars looked so beautiful in the sky, she suddenly realised. They shone like a halo around Nusha’s head, and the figure towering above her reminded her of Mephala.

Nusha’s scaled arms wrapped around Karme, lifting her up. Karme tried to mumble “Thank you”, but her throat was too dry. She was vaguely aware of being lowered into a boat by the side of the lake, and of Nusha paddling, before she passed out.

* * *

Karme woke up with a start. She had been plagued by nightmares ever since she was captured, and it didn’t seem like they were going to stop now that she was free. In her dream she was locked in the interrogation chamber, and the skeletons were left in the room with her. She screamed for Nusha to come help her, but nobody was there to prevent the creatures from tearing her apart.

She saw that it was still night. Her throat and stomach burned like hellfire, and she clenched her eyes shut again. Despite the horrors that awaited her in sleep, she would at least be free of physical pain there.

“No,” Nusha commanded. “Sit up. Drink.”

With the Argonian’s help she did so, drinking straight from Nusha’s palms, and the pain began to fade away ever so slowly. Nusha handed her a mushroom and she examined it to make sure it wasn’t a poisonous species, her childhood instincts never failing. She took a bite, and it felt like she was eating pure ecstasy. As her strength returned, she gobbled the mushroom down, and then another.

“There’ll be fish, too, soon.”

Karme looked up and saw that Nusha was preparing a fire, a fish lying on some leaves beside it. They were sat by some trees, and Lake Rumare glittered not far away from them. The ugly eyesore of the White Gold Tower, the obelisk at the centre of the Imperial City, pierced the sky beyond it, filling her with unease. Karme would never see it as beautiful again. She felt her stomach turn, and almost threw the mushrooms back up, but she managed to keep them down. She crawled to the stream that trickled a few feet away and drank more.

“Thank you,” she said, once she had her voice back.

“Don’t thank me yet. We’ve still got a hell of a journey to make. They’ll be searching for us already. We can’t stay here long.”

Karme’s mind was still in a blur. Them hiding in the city, the amulet, the necromancer—it all felt like a distant dream. But the amulet still burned against her chest, despite the many attempts of the palace authorities to remove it.

“Where will we go?” she asked.

“Where else? To Pale Pass.”

Pale Pass… That was right. They had to end this, once and for all. But like a terrible nightmare, it felt like they would never be rid of this burden. After all, even if they got rid of the amulet, they would still be on the run from the law.

Which begged the question of how Nusha escaped. The Argonian seemed to pre-empt this and, finally succeeding to light the fire, she turned to Karme and said, “Don’t worry about the past. Let’s focus on how to get to Bruma, and then we’ll talk about what happened.”

* * *

Once they had eaten and rested, Karme found herself returning to what she might consider ‘normal’. But after what she’d been through, she wasn’t sure if she would ever feel normal again.

It would be sunrise in a few hours, and Nusha suggested they take advantage of the remaining night to get a head start on their journey. Whether by luck, or pure chance, within a few minutes of walking along the road, they bumped into some old friends.

“Hide,” Nusha said.

Karme no longer tried to figure out the purpose behind Nusha’s commands, she simply followed them, trusting them to keep her safe. She dove into some bushes beside the road with Nusha.

“Look,” Nusha said.

It was hard to make out in the dark, but beside the ruins of a fort, Karme could just see the outline of tents. When she spotted one of the camp’s inhabitants, her heart skipped a beat.

It was the moneylenders from Bruma. At first she felt a jolt of panic, thinking that they were still looking for her, but she told herself that they would’ve given up by now. There were more lucrative avenues to pursue, and they’d likely already heard about her capture.

“That one’s supposed to be on watch, but I think he’s asleep,” Nusha whispered.

“So what, are we gonna sneak past them?”

“No. We’re going to steal their horses.”

Karme sat still and waited for Nusha to tell her the plan.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Nusha said.

“Huh? You’re the brains here. You’ve always been the one who knew what to do.”

Nusha looked at her, her amber eyes flickering inquisitively. It was as if she was reappraising Karme. Usually Karme would’ve found it off-putting, but she was beyond caring about Nusha’s perception of her. There was a new camaraderie between them, a deeper understanding.

Stealing the horses turned out to be fairly trivial. In her short time with Nusha, Karme had become adept at sneaking. Still nowhere near Nusha’s level, but she understood the game now. They took it in turns, using the chameleon ring, to go and take one horse. Karme used a silencing spell, but the horses came surprisingly easily. They also nabbed a sack that was within easy reach, which contained some superior clothes to their prison rags and a few Septims.

The Orcs stayed asleep, and they were well on their way to Bruma by the time the sun came up. The rhythmic gallop of the horse gave Karme something to focus on, and she forced herself to think through what they would do once they arrived in Bruma. She would’ve liked to head straight for the pass, but that would likely end up with them stranded in the Jerall Mountains, possibly surrounded by undead Akaviri soldiers. In the end, she knew that they would have to seek an audience with the countess. She had a diary written by somebody seeking the pass, outlining directions to it, and that was the only way they would get there before the law caught up with them.

Diplomacy was once Karme’s strong suit, though she saw now that her attempts at charm came off as obsequious. She had changed so much in a week, and now the idea of facing the countess made her nauseous, whereas before she would have approached the situation with an air of calm superiority.

When they stopped at a stream to water the horses, Karme asked Nusha the question that had been haunting her ever since they crept into the basement of Avranu the necromancer.

“What was that letter you showed her? And why did she react like that?”

Nusha stared at the stream for a long time before answering. “I decided that Avranu must have a reason, an ulterior motive for wanting that child’s skull. After all, if she simply needed a child’s skull for her magic, she would have found a grave and dug one up already. No, what she sought was vengeance.”

Revenge… In Morrowind, people were constantly seeking to avenge themselves and others. The bloody cycle of retribution was in large part the reason the Morag Tong was founded, in order to legitimise such disputes and curtail the damage. Karme had first thought Avranu, who practised a school of magic despised by most citizens of Morrowind, to be an _n’wah_ , a Dunmer from outside of the land. But perhaps, like Karme, she had reason to flee her home.

“Fevari is the daughter of Thones and Sedrno Llenrvi, the couple we saw walking with her. I asked around the district, and found out that Avranu had been spurned by Thones, or at least that was how she spoke of it to others. She was madly in love with him, and when he chose Sedrno over her, she became obsessed. So she bided her time, and when they had Fevari, she knew how she would exact her revenge. Except she didn’t dare try herself, because the family had long been wary of her.

“I went to Thones, explained the situation. I don’t know why he believed me, but that just shows how far Avranu had gone. I thought that if she saw, once and for all, that Thones didn’t love her, that he hadn’t been bewitched by Sedrno, she might relent. It was dumb luck that it worked in the end.”

Karme wasn’t sure she would call it ‘dumb luck’. It had taken a lot of clever negotiation on Nusha’s part.

Nusha bowed her head and closed her eyes. “I think Avranu realised I was a killer. And she was right. At first, I was going to kill the child. I wanted that information so bad that I—I just thought like I had been trained to be. Even though it was a child.”

Karme sat down by the stream and dangled her fingers in it, enjoying the way the water caressed her skin.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Why? I did nothing. If you hadn’t—”

“You risked our lives by going out and asking for that information. What you wanted to do… would have been easier. We might’ve even been able to avoid being imprisoned. But you didn’t chose the easy way out. What you did was brave.”

Nusha looked away. “I’ve never been called brave before. And I’ve never considered myself to be it.”

Karme stood up, placed her hand on Nusha’s shoulder. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and for the first time, Karme felt like she was truly seeing her. She looked at the whorled pattern of pigmentation on Nusha’s face—obsidian backed by night—and committed it to memory. She wasn’t sure how much time they still had left together, and she felt now that she would miss Nusha, whenever they inevitably had to part.

“You are brave,” she said.

Nusha’s mouth twitched, and for a brief moment, Karme thought she was crying, but before she could be sure, Nusha turned away and mounted her horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get gert emotional in this chapter I hope you came prepared!  
> How are y'all doing this week? I'm super tired from this new job


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha and Karme make their way to Pale Pass, but someone else is heading that way too.

For once, Nusha was the one who didn’t want to sneak around.

Karme had suggested that they climb over the wall, like they had when they escaped Bruma, to get inside the countess’ castle, on the assumption that news of their escape would have spread here by now and that the guards would be suspicious.

Nusha said if that were the case, they would be apprehended in the castle, anyway. Better to find out while they still had a chance to flee.

“We’re just going to have to disguise you,” Nusha said.

It proved to be quite easy. Karme had changed dramatically since her last time in Bruma. She was thinner, hardier, and dressed in baggy Orcs’ clothes instead of finery. All Nusha did was tie her hair back tell her to keep her head down. Thankfully, the stolen shirt hid the amulet well.

They left their horses at the stables and reluctantly approached the gates of the city. Nusha worried that they still looked like escaped criminals, but it was too late to turn back now.

The guards stopped them at the gate and inspected their bag, which contained nothing but the stolen Septims.

“You’re travelling awfully light. What’s your business in Bruma?”

“We’re visiting the Mages’ Guild,” Nusha said.

“You don’t look like mages.”

“We get told that a lot.”

Nusha gave her best attempt at a non-threatening smile. The guard seemed perturbed but let them in.

“We’ve had a lot of nonsense here recently,” he said, “so don’t go messing around. We don’t tolerate it here in Bruma.”

Nusha nodded deferentially and they were let inside.

They wasted no time and marched straight to the castle.

“We have information on an Akaviri artefact,” Nusha said to the guard. They were told to wait to be called in to see the countess.

“I really hope she doesn’t recognise me,” Karme muttered.

“We’re going to have to tell her about the amulet,” Nusha said. “I have a feeling she won’t just hand the diary over to anybody.”

They waited in the cold outside the castle, huddling close for warmth. Nusha kept looking around, worried that some citizen of Bruma might figure out who they were, and send the guards after them. But when the castle guard eventually returned, it was to invite them in.

Countess Narina Carvain was a tall Imperial woman, effete and puffy from a life of luxury. She was pale, almost sickly-looking, as if she never dared brave the cold and spent all her time indoors. She wore a dress of blue silk, and her throne had an animal pelt thrown over it in a slapdash attempt at paying homage to Nordic culture.

She gazed down at them from the throne—there were quite a few steps to separate her from her subjects—with a wry smile on her lips.

“My guards thought I should put you straight in prison,” she said.

Nusha tensed, looked around the room. But the guards weren’t waiting at the door to apprehend them if they tried to escape. Carvain, for all her grandeur, was giving them an honest audience.

“I hope you did not believe that you would be able to slip in here unnoticed. News of your activity is spreading quickly throughout Cyrodiil. I believe the Imperial guard may have been… overly zealous in their treatment of you. Karme, you wield the Amulet of Bonebreath, do you not? The amulet that I requested from you long ago.”

Karme said nothing, so the countess continued.

“It is now a considerably more dangerous object. Of course, if you had given it to me in the first place, taken it out of the hands of that bumbling drunkard Svaknal, we would not be in this situation. But few heed my wise words, and many fall prey to folly as a result. I know why you have come here. You seek passage to Pale Pass, so that you might dispose of the amulet. Am I correct?”

She posed the question in full confidence that she was, accompanying it with a self-righteous grin. Nusha was surprised at her knowledge of the artefact, but it made sense given her penchant for Akaviri objects.

“Yes, my lady,” Nusha said.

“Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, I am not going to simply hand over the directions to Pale Pass without gaining something in return. I have told you of the Draconian Madstone before. As I am sure you have guessed, I wish you to acquire the Draconian Madstone. I will give you the directions to Pale Pass on the condition that you retrieve the artefact for me.”

She stood up, stroked the fur on her throne with an eye that suggested to Nusha disdain for the Nordic customs and people that surrounded her.

“You may be tempted to rid yourself of the Amulet of Bonebreath and be on your merry way, but I can assure you that if you attempt to do so I will have my men hunt you down and personally escort you back to the Imperial Prison. Nobody escapes the Imperial Prison, they say, though you proved them wrong. But so far, nobody, in the long history of the Empire, has lived to escape it _twice_.”

“We accept your offer,” Nusha said. She was growing weary of this. If the countess had this all planned out, did she really need to hold court for so long?

“Of course you will. You have no other choice. My herald, Tolgan, will give you the information you require, and escort you out of the city. I am afraid your horses have doubtlessly already been seized, though they were never yours to begin with, were they? Fear not. Tolgan will lead you out of a secret exit where two steeds are waiting for you. The men from the Imperial City will be informed of your dramatic escape from Bruma, and that you were last seen heading to Cheydinhal.”

A portly Nord appeared from the shadows behind the countess’ throne and gestured for them to follow him. Nusha bowed to the countess and clambered up the steps.

She felt uneasy about the whole affair. If this Madstone came form the same place the Amulet of Bonebreath had, it was not going to be easy to find.

* * *

“So the army was hiding out at Pale Pass?” Nusha asked.

The only things she’d heard about the Akaviri were legends and vague murmurings. She had heard the Tsaesci, the race that attempted to invade Tamriel the first time, referred to as ‘serpent people’. It was either a racist exaggeration or simply a lazy description, she decided, but it did make her curious. Could they be related to the Argonians, transformed by something like the Hist?

“That’s correct,” Karme said. “This diary is written by a messenger who was trying to reach them. I’m surprised they managed to translate it so accurately. The countess is craftier than she seems.”

They were making their way up a snowy trail, heading to the first landmark in the diary: Dragonclaw Rock. As they went Nusha pulled her cloak—graciously provided by the countess—tighter around her. This was not a place for Argonians. She felt her blood freezing over, and it took her several seconds to react to anything Karme said. She was glad for the horses, who were a hardy Skyrim breed, but she almost wished she was walking so she could get her circulation going.

“I’m a bit worried about this rock,” Karme said. “What if it’s been weathered away and it’s no longer obvious?”

Nusha was more worried about the snow: it pressed and whipped around them, and if it kept on like this they soon wouldn’t be able to see more than five feet in front of them.

“How long until we get there?” Nusha cried over the wind.

“No idea. It’s two days by foot, according to this, but there’s no telling how slowly the messenger had to go.”

Two _days_? The horses didn’t seem that much quicker to Nusha, but she supposed that on foot they would have had to stop several times already.

“I think I see it!” Karme cried.

Nusha could only see a faint black blob, but as they came nearer she could make out the curves more clearly. It didn’t look very much like a dragon’s claw in her opinion, but it was big enough to be the landmark. They dismounted and leant against the rock, which provided a wind shield. The countess had also given them packs with food, and Nusha ravenously dug into the bread and goat’s cheese, the first proper meal she’d had in ages.

As they ate, the snowstorm died down, and an eerie calm fell on the place. Nusha thought it was no wonder that the pass hadn’t been discovered yet: the Jerall Mountains were unsettling. Through the crisp air they could suddenly see far around them in every direction, and Nusha couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.

Her fears were confirmed a moment later. A ragged cry from the rock above her, and she rolled aside just in time to avoid the hooded figure plunging down at her with a knife. He landed on the ground, rolling nimbly and leaping to his feet. His hood fell back to reveal the face of an Altmer.

Nusha fumbled about on her person for a knife. She was still sluggish from the cold, and the man was already readying for another attack, raising his hands and muttering an incantation.

Nusha grasped the knife, but her fingers spasmed and it fell to the ground. His incantation was almost complete, so she ducked and head-butted him, knocking him to the ground.

“You!” Karme cried. They both stopped and looked at her. “You’re that High Elf from Chorrol.”

The man got up and sneered at her. “Yes, and you’re that meddling girl who ruined my plans! Hand over the amulet now!”

Nusha shook her head. “It’s not that easy. It won’t come off.”

He growled in exasperation and turned to Nusha. “I was the one who hired _you_ to kill Svaknal in the first place! And now you’ve betrayed your mission!”

Nusha’s head hurt, like it was blocked with ice. She was faintly aware of the fact that she might apologise to this man, but given the circumstances in which he’d approached them, she wasn’t feeling generous.

“I don’t care who you are,” Nusha said. “The amulet must be taken to Pale Pass. It’s the only way to get rid of it.”

“Not if I kill you!”

With surprising speed he lunged at Karme, stabbing the knife in her arm. She swore loudly in Dunmeri and kneed him in the groin. He fell to his knees, and Nusha grabbed him from behind, pulling a blade to his neck.

“Move another inch and I’ll kill you.”

A blinding pain spread through Nusha’s hand and she let go. He had managed to cast a spell without her looking, and he was leering towards Karme again. Nusha threw the knife with all her strength and it landed in his chest, stopping him dead in his tracks. He made a gargled protest and fell to the ground.

“Karme!”

Nusha was immediately at her side. The wound was deep, and her shirt was already drenched in blood. Nusha ripped off a strip of her shirt and tied it around as a makeshift torniquet.

“I’m fine,” Karme said, wincing. “Really. Is he dead?”

Nusha briefly inspected the body. He was out cold, but still breathing.

“He won’t be bothering us anymore. Do you think you’ll be able to make it to the pass?”

She nodded and stood up with Nusha’s help.

“Don’t have much choice, do I?”

The amulet slipped out of her shirt and bobbed in the air. It was shining brighter than ever now, an eye of searing scarlet. They couldn’t afford to waste any more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are heating up as we get closer to the end of the story! I really enjoying the quest for the Draconian Madstone in Oblivion, so I was glad to be able to incorporate it into my story.
> 
> What do you think's gonna happen next? I have a hint. It starts with 'o' and rhymes with 'sober'. Well sort of. It's not a word that rhymes very well ><


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nusha and Karme make their way into Pale Pass, but something is very wrong...

From Dragonclaw Rock they made quick progress westward. With the snowstorm gone, they could talk more freely, and Karme filled Nusha in on the history of the Akaviri invasion. It was comforting to recall details from her tutoring, and it excited her to think she was quite literally stepping through history, but at the same time she felt oddly detached. Her past life seemed so innocent, so frivolous, compared to the trials she’d been through in the last few days.

Night was falling as they reached the Sentinel, an ancient statue that acted as the second waypoint to Pale Pass. Karme thought it fascinating that an artist, so long ago, had built a statue in such an obscure location, and that it was still largely intact. She speculated as to who the figure depicted might be. It was too human to be a depiction of an Aedra or Daedra, and had been built before the time of the hero-gods Reman and Talos. Nusha joked that the artist might have been conceited enough to simply carve themselves.

They camped by the statue that night. Karme worried about wolves, who roamed in wild packs in these areas and had bought the author of the diary to an untimely end. But the night passed uneventfully. The two of them huddled together in the sleeping bag provided by the countess, the cold leaving no room for pettiness to separate them.

Karme’s wound throbbed with fresh pain in the morning air, and she was sure it was going to leave a nasty scar. For now, she had to be brave.

“Ogres today,” she muttered, when she felt Nusha stirring awake behind her.

“Huh?”

“We’ll be passing through a cavern, the Serpent’s Trail, before entering the valley itself. Both are said to contain ogres.”

Nusha crawled out of the sleeping bag and started doing stretches.

“Can’t be worse than undead soldiers, Imperial guards, and angry Altmers. Besides, aren’t ogres weak to fire? We’ll be fine with your magic.”

Karme watched Nusha pull out her single arrow and look wistfully at it.

“Where did you get that?” she asked.

The countess, in all her wisdom, hadn’t deigned to provide them with weapons.

“Stole it from Meeran.”

Nusha had told Karme the full story of how she escaped from the Imperial Prison, but the whole thing still seemed like a dream to her. Meeran’s weapons made it realer. She only wished there had been a full quiver of arrows to take, but there was no time for stalling or turning back now.

The statue pointed north, marking the way they needed to take. Within a few hours they reached the entrance to a cave. They left the horses there, tied up to a wispy tree.

“Alright,” Nusha whispered. “If we keep quiet, we might be able to sneak past the ogres without any bloodshed.”

Karme’s heart was pumping fast now. She’d heard many tales of ogres—of their gruesome might, how they ate the bones of those they killed—but she had never seen one.

“Do you think you’ll be able to manage without light?” Nusha asked.

Karme’s fear must have been evident. She put on a brave face and nodded. Nusha led the way inside, and within a few metres they were in pitch black. The ogres must’ve had powerful eyesight to be able to live down here.

They crept through the winding corridors of the Serpent’s Trail, and the reasoning behind the name of the place quickly became evident. As they turned each corner Karme braced herself to come face-to-face with a great, hulking beast. But each time, they found nothing. Eventually the cave began to fill with light, and the exit was within reach. Karme held her breath, expecting to walk outside to an army of hungry ogres.

What they found scared her even more.

Not far from the exit of the cave, scattered and piled up against each other, was a whole horde of dead ogres. Arrows stuck out of their heads, and fresh blood decorated the ground. There must have been at least twenty of them, each killed in the same, efficient way. Most were piled up near the base of a tall rock, suggesting that the killer had climbed up and picked them off one-by-one. Karme should have been relieved, but she felt an overwhelming sense of dread as they approached the site of the massacre, the coppery scent of blood invading her nostrils.

Karme didn’t come too close, worried she would lose her breakfast, but Nusha went right up and examined the bodies.

“Who could’ve done this?” she murmured.

Nusha didn’t respond to her question, but simply looked up at the craggy outcrop where the archer had fired from, and then back at the body.

“We’re almost at the fort,” Nusha said. “Let’s press on.”

The air of dread followed them all the way through the valley. They saw no wolves and no ogres, despite the great distance that spread out before them. Death hung thickly in the air, and Karme found herself looking forward to reaching the fort, as if it might be less gloomy inside.

“How are we going to give the amulet back to Mishaxhi?” she said, wishing to break the silence.

Nusha shrugged. “I was hoping you’d have an idea. I mean, he’s dead, right? Maybe we’ll be able to return it to his body.”

Karme fingered the chain of the amulet uneasily. She doubted it would be that simple. Nothing thus far had been.

They crested a hill and the fort came into view in the distance. Nusha picked up the pace, but she was oddly quiet, and Karme struggled to keep stride with her. She supposed Nusha was just as nervous as she was.

When they came nearer to the fort, she thought she saw something moving around inside. She almost stopped Nusha, told her she thought she’d seen an ogre, but it was too dark and small for that. They climbed the path to the entrance of the fort, and the figure stepped out, barring their way to the courtyard. It was hard to tell from this distance, but it looked like another Argonian, his legs firmly planted and his arms crossed in a defiant stance.

Nusha kept pushing on, so Karme said nothing. Her companion came to an abrupt stop at the top of the path, several metres away from the other Argonian. The one blocking their way was smirking, eyeing Nusha up with triumphant glee.

“Nusha,” he spoke. “You finally came.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I didn't get the job I was doing the trial period for. Spent a lot of yesterday moping about it and eating copious amounts of pizza. I'm soooo annoyed about the whole thing, but whatever, I'll move on...
> 
> What do y'all think is gonna happen next? I hope they kick Tun-Na's ass, extra hard. To make up for me not getting this job. Yes I'm totally blaming one of my own fictional characters deal with it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The climactic showdown between Nusha and Tun-Na.

“Tun-Na.”

Nusha practically spat the name out. He had always been a thorn in her side. She had hoped that once they came of age, went their separate ways to complete their assignments for the Brotherhood, that they would at least be able to slip into mutual disinterest. But it seemed that Tun-Na insisted on hounding her, underscoring her failures and laughing at them every step of the way.

Nusha had known it was Tun-Na as soon as they saw the ogres. What appeared to Karme to be mindless slaughter was to Nusha a clear sign: watch out, I’m ready for you.

“Tell me,” Tun-Na said, “did your prophecy foretell this?”

Nusha winced. Ever since the capture in the Imperial City, her belief in the prophecy had vanished entirely. She had once been insistent, vehement about its truth, but now she found her face flushing. Tun-Na had mocked her endlessly about it, and it seemed, along with his appraisal of her weakness, that he was right again.

“That doesn’t matter Tun-Na. Wh—”

“Oh, but it does!”

Tun-Na spread his arms wide in a display of dominance.

“The Dark Brotherhood knows what you did: betraying your mission, lying to them. Colluding with this… creature.” He gestured dismissively at Karme. “News of your adventure has gone all the way up to the Black Hand.”

Nusha knew this, of course. It must have been them who sent Meeran to rescue her, though she was now sure that the plan had been to kill her. But Tun-Na’s revelation filled her with shame nonetheless. Before, she had been an insignificant blip on the radar of the Brotherhood. Now she was a runaway, and those who turned their back on the Brotherhood always came to regret their decision.

“They’ve given me permission to disobey one of the tenets,” Tun-Na said. “I am here to kill you.”

Tun-Na waited for Nusha to respond, but Nusha simply shrugged. It was almost a liberating feeling, to be declared an enemy by those who had only grudgingly accepted you before. She no longer had to try and fit a mould that would never accommodate her. She was an enemy of the Brotherhood, so she had nothing more to lose. And there was no way she was going down to the likes of Tun-Na.

“Karme,” Nusha muttered, taking off the chameleon ring and handing it to her. “Go ahead. Use the ring to get through the fort and get rid of the amulet. Find the Draconian Madstone. If you have to return without me, so be it.”

“But Nusha—”

“Go!”

Karme nodded, gave Nusha a worried glance, and ran towards the fort. Tun-Na paid her no attention. He wasn’t here for the amulet.

Karme disappeared into the courtyard and the heavy door that lead into the interior of the fort opened and swung shut behind her.

Tun-Na smiled, and walked away from Nusha. As he went, he removed his quiver and weapons, throwing them aside.

“Come, Nusha. Let’s fight, hand to hand. Just like the old days.”

Nusha walked up, threw her weapons onto the pile with Tun-Na’s, and readied herself.

They had fought many times. At first, it was Tun-Na and his gang of friends teaming up on her, and she had no choice in the matter. Eventually she had to fight back, and for years the preceptors were breaking them apart, doling out equal punishment, even though Tun-Na was always the one to start it. When they entered the west wing of the priory, they were too old to get away with such childish games, but Nusha had never fully lost the thirst to beat Tun-Na to a pulp.

Nusha was weaker than Tun-Na. It was true back then, and it was true now. But she had other strengths. She had the advantage of speed, plus the pent up hatred from years of torment. Tun-Na’s talents—climbing and archery—wouldn’t save him here.

They stood several paces apart in the courtyard, bent over in a fighting stance. Tun-Na bowed mockingly to Nusha, and the fight began.

She immediately took the chance to strike, running at him and curling her fist up into his stomach. But he jumped aside before it connected, and his fist slammed into her head, knocking her sideways.

“Come _on_ , Nusha. Try and be less obvious.”

Nusha gritted her teeth and swiped again, wishing to wipe that smug smile off his face. He jerked his head sideways, and swung his leg into her side, knocking the wind out of her and sending her to her knees. Then he brought his other leg up, his knee colliding with her face with a sickening _crunch_ , knocking her onto her back.

Nusha panted, tasting blood from her nose. Her vision swam. She wasn’t used to fighting in this bitter cold. Tun-Na appeared over her, a determined grin on his face, and she rolled over, just avoiding another kick. She sprang to her feet and jumped back a few paces, reconsidering her approach.

Tun-Na looked relaxed, like he was just warming up. Nusha was already throbbing with pain in various places, blood and sweat clouding her vision. How had it gone this badly already?

Before she could figure out an approach, Tun-Na dived at her. She ducked, avoiding his punch, and rose up with her fist to counter. But he had already leapt back, as if he had anticipated her counter and prepared accordingly.

Think, Nusha. You have twice the brains that he does.

And yet Tun-Na was outsmarting her at every turn. That was what had always infuriated her, set her alight with petty, childish envy. Not only did he torment her, but he was _smarter_ than her. By the time she had eked out an advantage of her own in sneaking, he was already leagues ahead of her in everything else.

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. That was the problem. She was letter anger and hatred cloud her judgement. It made her rash and sloppy, and with the cold weather Tun-Na had quickly taken the upper hand.

Seeing Nusha’s calm mien, Tun-Na threw in a jibe: “Getting tired, Nusha? I thought you were going to make this fun.”

She didn’t take the bait, and kept an expression of stony calm. Her eyes darted around the fort, for the first time properly taking in the surroundings. There were three levels to the place, with a circular viewing area in the centre. But the third level was half collapsed, the ground littered with the fallen stone. Maybe she could make use of that.

They paced around each other. Tun-Na feinted, and attempted to strike again, but Nusha dodged, and quickly moved away from him in case he struck again. She noticed a flash of irritation on his face. Good. Let him be the child.

Then, when the stairs were behind her, she turned and ran, bolting up the weathered steps. She almost tripped but managed to stabilise, and Tun-Na was taken by surprise, slow to follow behind her. That would give her plenty of time to reach the third level.

“Running away, Nusha?” he jeered after her. “You’re making me nostalgic.”

Nusha ignored him and turned round to the second flight of stairs. By the time she reached the third floor Tun-Na had caught up with her, and she only had a few seconds to assess the area. The stone floor of the fort covered only about half of the level, and it looked weathered and unstable. She identified which areas looked strongest, before turning to face Tun-Na.

“Nowhere left to run,” he said with a wicked grin.

Nusha paced backwards, casting a glance over her shoulder. She let Tun-Na corner her, pushing her towards the edge, making him think he had the advantage.

“I had hoped you would provide a more exciting end than this,” he said. “But I suppose it’s fitting for you to meet such a cowardly end.”

Tun-Na made a few feints, and Nusha jumped back, acting afraid. Tun-Na cackled with glee, swinging his fists again to try and scare her. She was only a metre from the edge, and she felt the ground wobbling beneath her.

Tun-Na finally swung for real, and his eyes bulged in surprise as Nusha jumped _forward._ He was hunched over and she landed on his shoulders, using him as a boost to get away from the edge and back to the safety of the stairs.

Nusha whipped round to see Tun-Na fall onto the floor. A crack deepened in the stone, and for a few seconds it wobbled menacingly. Tun-Na’s expression turned to surprise, then horror, as the ground gave way beneath him.

Nusha winced, expecting to hear the _crack_ of his body hitting the ground below. But there was silence. She looked back and saw one claw dug into the edge of the stone, hanging on for dear life.

“Well, Tun-Na,” she called. “It’s been fun, but I’ve got a mission to complete. You always were good at puzzles. See if you can figure this one out.”

She ran down the stairs and into the fort, Tun-Na cursing her every step of the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY Nusha gets to kick some ass! #JusticeForNusha
> 
> Have you ever got revenge on a bully like this? How did it feel?


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karme makes her way through the fort, encountering its not-so-friendly inhabitants.

Karme was greeted by a skeleton as soon as she stepped inside the fort. She readied a fireball realising that this one was well and truly dead. She approached carefully, in case it changed its mind, but it stayed on the ground. There was a piece of withered parchment clutched in its bony hand, and she carefully freed it.

Naturally the note was written in the language of the Akaviri invaders, and time had made the scrawled symbols practically illegible. She compared it to the untranslated diary entries, finding that the handwriting matched. This was the grisly end that the messenger had met, so close to his goal. His last few entries spoke of the wolf bite that felled him, and his last words were: “And please tell my wife, Vata, that Xhaferi will always love her.”

Karme had no time for sentimentality. She pocketed the note, thinking it might be of interest to the countess, and readied herself to continue. The fort was lit by a strange blue glow, from some floating orb in the corridor ahead of her. Karme crept forward, but there were no skeletons or skeevers in this room. She examined the object. It appeared solid, but was infused with magic. The Akaviri had technology that Tamriel had still yet to master, even back then, and she marvelled that the light had remained so long. She reached a door at the end of the corridor, surrounded by statues of snakes, hissing warnings at whoever dared enter through it. Their mouths were open wide, displaying fearsome pairs of fangs.

The door opened with a loud creak and Karme winced, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the next room. A snap came from the darkness, followed by a wretched creaking, and she knew she wasn’t alone.

She moved forward, slipping into a dark alcove and pressing herself against the wall. She only had so much mana, and she was going to have to use it sparingly. She waited for the skeleton to approach, its feet scratching against the old stone floor. When she saw a plume of dust kick up beside her alcove, she twisted the ring, her ears popping as the bubble of invisibility and soundlessness enveloped her. The skeleton walked past her, and she forced herself to move, scurrying behind it until she turned a corner and the enchantment wore off.

The skeleton had been armed with a bow and arrow, and she prayed that these ones were not like the ones that had pursued them to the Imperial City. She would not be able to sneak past all of them, and if they reformed themselves, she feared she would not make it out of the fort alive.

Beside her was the door to the next room, and carved into the stone above this one was a pair of menacing, slitted eyes. She entered into the Eyes of the Serpent with her breath held.

In this room, she heard no skeleton. But she still tread carefully, sure that there were enemies in wait. Two columns stood in the centre of the main chamber, and between them sat a chest, tempting any passing adventurer to open it. It was open just a crack, and she could see the glint of a mana potion inside.

The high-pitched squeak of a skeever came from her right and she jumped. The creature bounded over to the chest, hitting an almost-invisible pressure panel as it did so. A huge, barrel-shaped mace swung down from a concealed panel in the ceiling, passing over the skeever’s head and coming within inches of Karme’s face.

Making sure to keep well away from the chest, Karme inched her way across the room and through the door on the other side. Two great spikes hung above the door and another pair protruded from the floor on either side, like stalagmites and stalactites. She opened the door to the Fangs of the Serpent and stepped through.

An arrow whizzed past her and imbedded itself to the wall on her right. She pressed herself against the wall beside her. Beyond her hiding spot, there was a series of columns and steps down to a lowered area in the centre of the room, which then ascended to a platform on the other side. From here, she could heard the creaking bones and taught bowstrings of at least two skeletal archers. They barely made a sound as they waited, and she realised she could not make it through this room without a fight.

Karme charged up a fireball in her hand, waiting until she couldn’t hold it any longer. She spun round the corner, firing it at the skeletons, before twisting back into hiding. There was a loud _bang_ and the clatter of bones hitting the floor. She waited a few moments, hearing nothing more, and concluded that that the three she had seen must be felled. She stepped out and an arrow skimmed past her hair. She dived forward instinctively and shot another fireball in the direction it had came, blasting the final skeleton apart. She dusted herself off, made sure there weren’t any more enemies in hiding, and made her way across to the other side.

She considered taking a bow and arrow from one of the skeletons—they weren’t reforming any time soon, it seemed—but decided against it. She had only tried archery once as a child, and decided she was far too clumsy and inaccurate to pursue it. She’d be more likely to hurt herself than anything else with it.

She approached the door, this one surrounded by engravings of runes that she recognised from her childhood lessons in alchemy. It was the symbol for venom. Going by the analogy of the place so far, that meant she was getting closer, she reasoned. And doubtlessly, the Venom of the Serpent would be the most dangerous part.

Her hand was on the handle of the door, ready to push, when she heard a noise behind her. Footsteps. She froze, pushing herself against the wall and twisting the ring. But it hadn’t recharged yet. Whatever it was, it was fast approaching. Had the skeleton from the first room come for her? What if there was more than one?

Sweat dripped down into her eyes. She had expended a lot of energy with those spells, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out. The steps were getting nearer, moving with an almost frantic pace. She started charging a fireball, readied herself to jump out…

“Karme!”

She almost fell over backwards. It was Nusha, whispering at her, holding her shoulders. With difficulty, she retracted the spell, and fell into Nusha’s arms.

“You scared me.”

“Shh. Something might hear us.”

“Is the other Argonian…?”

“He’s alive, but incapacitated. We should keep moving on, though.”

Karme pulled herself together, stood up, wiped her brow.

“I think we’re nearly there.”

What ‘there’ meant, she wasn’t sure. She still didn’t know if they would come face-to-face with the reanimated corpse of the Akaviri general, or would find a pile of worthless bones.

Nusha stepped forward and opened the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started playing Oblivion again recently I had forgotten the absolutely horrifying sounds skeletons make in the game. Like crazy cats or something. But they're very easy to defeat in practice, especially if your character is an archer. What's your favourite dungeon monster? I'm quite partial to slime myself, but as far as I know there are none in Tamriel.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heros confront Mishaxhi, and things don't exactly go to plan.

The chamber was dark when they entered. Nusha squinted, her eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom. It was a wide, spacious room, and all around the edges were crates, piles of clothes, and weapons. The Akaviri army had clearly used this room for storage, and it looked like they were planning on hiding out there for a long time.

A blue light came from the opposite wall, and Nusha at first thought it was from the same magic that lit the other rooms. But this one was different; pale, and faint. It appeared as a strange mist, which whirled together, moved by some invisible wind, until it coalesced into the form of a person.

Commander Mishaxhi of Akavir stood before them as a spectre. He was dressed in the rivuletted armour of his people, katana sheathed by his side, an impressive figure even in death. Karme stepped forward but Nusha shot out her arm. There was no telling what this ghost would do.

“You are the messenger,” the ghost said, finally.

Karme opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. Nusha wasn’t sure what they should do. Play along with this game? Or tell him the messenger was dead, that the war was over? The commander continued.

“We have been holed up here for weeks now. I hope you come bearing good news.”

He thought he was still there, in the war. Except something was wrong. Karme started to speak but Nusha interrupted her.

“This doesn’t make sense. He’s speaking Cyrodiilic.”

Karme shook her head. “No, you’re just hearing it as that. I heard it in Dunmeri. He’s speaking directly to our minds.”

The ghost observed them as they spoke. Even stood still, his weapon sheathed, he managed to appear threatening.

Karme pulled out the amulet, its glow mixing with the hazy blue light of the ghost.

“I have come to return your amulet,” she said.

The ghost’s expression twisted into rage, and he let out a guttural cry, which echoed across the stone chamber.

“You! You are the one who stole my amulet!”

In a second he had unsheathed his sword and moved forward. Nusha had thought that the ghost couldn’t harm them, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“No!” Karme cried. “I promise, I didn’t mean to, I…”

She tugged at the chain, but the amulet would not come off. Mishaxhi marched closer.

Nusha pulled the bow off her back, nocked the arrow, and fired. It flew straight through the ghost, landing in a pile of weapons on the other side of the room.

“It’s no use!” Karme said. “Only silver will harm it.”

Nusha swore and started rummaging through the weapons around them. It was hard to tell what material they were made from in the dark room, and she had to move nearer to the ghost to be able to see. Meanwhile, Mishaxhi swung at Karme, who narrowly dodged the blow. The sword sliced through one of the crates like butter, confirming the real danger of the commander. Karme’s injured arm whacked into one of the crates, and she howled in pain.

“It’s no use,” Nusha said, throwing away a broadsword. “These are all iron and steel.”

“Traitor!” the ghost shrieked. “I will cut out your entrails and eat them, I will turn you into a mindless soldier of death!”

Mishaxhi turned on them, backing them into a corner.

“What can we do?” Nusha said.

“I’ll have to use my magic. Nusha, when I give the signal, you run through that wall the ghost came through.”

“What?”

“It’s a trick, an invisible wall.”

The ghost swung at them and they separated. Nusha ran to the other side of the room, but Karme taunted the ghost, led it after her. A fireball grew in her hand, expanding into a heavy globe. Nusha could feel its heat from the other side of the room. Karme gritted her teeth, huge droplets of sweat pouring down her face, as she concentrated on the flame.

“Now!” she cried.

She loosed the fireball and it crashed into the ghost, sending it hurtling across the room and into a pile of swords. Nusha ran towards the wall but was swept off her feet by the explosion the fireball. She landed face-first on the floor, and the whole building shook around her, great chunks of stone dislodging themselves from the ceiling and falling down.

She now understood Karme’s plan. They were bringing the whole place down with them. She forced herself up, despite a blinding pain in her leg, and hobbled over through the wall.

As soon as she passed through the other side, it was as if she’d entered a bubble. The noise from the other room was heavily muffled, but the fort still shook, and this small alcove was no safer than the rest of it.

In front of her, placed on a small octagonal altar, was a glimmering black pendant. The Draconian Madstone. She grabbed it and pulled it around her neck. All this trouble, thanks to these stupid pieces of jewellery.

Beyond the altar was another door, and from the chill in the air she knew that the way out was not far beyond it. But Karme was still behind her, and she wouldn’t leave the Dunmer to die.

She turned back. Inside the Venom of the Serpent, half the ceiling had collapsed, and it was almost pitch black. The light of the ghost had been definitively extinguished.

“Nusha!”

Nusha followed the direction of the cry, finding Karme trapped under a pile of rubble. She quickly got to work shifting it aside.

“Leave me,” she rasped.

“No” was all Nusha said. She pushed the rock aside with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, freeing the Dark Elf and pulling her to her feet.

Nusha turned round towards the fake wall, but just at that moment a huge chunk of ceiling fell down, blocking the way.

“Bogfire!” Nusha cried. “We’ll have to go back the way we came.”

Half carrying Karme, she navigated past the huge chunks of ceiling and back into the Fangs of the Serpent. They made slow progress, and more than once a piece of stone landed where they were about to step, but as they got further from the Venom, the fort grew more stable.

They were in the Mouth of the Serpent, almost at the exit, when Nusha heard a whimper.

In a shadowy corner of the fort, Tun-Na lay against the wall, an arrow sticking out of his chest.

Nusha knew she should have left him. He would’ve done the same to her without blinking an eye—actually, he probably would’ve taken time to gloat at her. But right now, the thought of losing even Tun-Na was too much for her to bear.

“What happened?” she said, helping him to his feet.

“That damn skeleton…”

Tun-Na mumbled a few more words and passed out. With Karme’s help, they dragged his body outside, just as the corridor they were in started to collapse.

It was dusk in the courtyard, but they didn’t stop moving until they were a safe distance away from the fort. The once elegant ruins now looked like a sweetroll somebody had stepped on, all crumpled and disjointed. They collapsed against a rock, propping Tun-Na up beside them, and sat there for a long while, saying nothing.

“Do you think he’s dead?” Karme murmured.

Nusha shook her head. “The arrow isn’t nearly as deep as it looks. He’ll come around. What happened to the pendant?”

Karme lifted it up. It was nothing more than a dinted, old ruby now, the fiery glow gone completely. Karme pulled at the rusty chain and it snapped. She lifted an arm and threw it as far as she could, to be lost in the depths of the valley.

“Good riddance,” Nusha muttered.

“You got the Madstone?” Karme asked.

Nusha nodded, showing it to her. She supposed it was beautiful, but right now the sight of it made her feel sick.

The tumult of the collapsing fort finally finished, and they were left in the silence of the valley.

They both had a healthy collection of injuries. Karme had the wound on her arm, as well as a heavily-twisted ankle and a lot of bruising from the rocks that had fallen on her. Nusha had a great lump on her head from some rubble that she hadn’t even noticed hitting her, as well as a smattering of nasty cuts bruises from the fight with Tun-Na.

Nusha examined him again, just to make sure he was alive, and he slowly regained consciousness. He stared at the ground, unable to look into Nusha’s eyes. Eventually, he spoke.

“You shouldn’t have saved me.”

“Oh, stop that,” Nusha said.

She didn’t have it in her to fight any longer. Whatever her history with Tun-Na, it was put aside for now.

“I’ll come with you to Leyawiin,” Tun-Na said. “Appeal for you. If they kill you, I’ll die with you.”

Nusha spat on the ground. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ll go back and tell them you killed me, that I was just as easy as you had expected.”

Tun-Na gazed up at her in confusion. “But Nusha, you could be—”

“I’ll never be a real assassin, Tun-Na. I understand that now.” She leant against the rock, wrapping her cloak tight around her. Now that she’d gotten over the shock of their ordeal, the cold was seeping in again. “I don’t know if I truly had a vision from Sithis, or if it was all a fantasy. I expect I’ll never know. Maybe Sithis wished me to serve him in another way, maybe not. Whatever the case, I’m not cut out to be an assassin.”

Tun-Na shook his head. “But Meeran—”

“Is a fool. And possibly in the Imperial Prison, thanks to me.”

She smiled at that idea. He didn’t deserve it, but she couldn’t help but be amused.

“If I go back to the Brotherhood, there’s a good chance I’ll mess up again. I’d always be worried about the consequences of my actions. But if you tell them I’m dead, I’ll be free.”

Free to do what, Nusha didn’t know. She’d spent all her life in the dark confines of the Priory and the various Sanctuaries around Cyrodiil. No ordinary life awaited her, but whatever she found, she was sure it would be better than living as a heartless killer.

“Karme, do you think you can walk? We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our story meets its end, as do the lives of several people.

Hieronymus had survived great battles, bested men in fights while unarmed, and been assigned to dangerous missions in obscure corners of Tamriel. But he had never seen anything like the skeletons. They had been trapped in the palace for over a week now, but neither their strength, nor the magic that bound them, had waned. Archmage Hannibal Traven himself was unable to disenchant the bones, and in the end they gave up, instead observing the skeletons’ behaviour to try and decipher a weakness.

The skeletons tried to slice the wall of the circular chamber with their swords at first, but when the hard stone blunted their blades, they resorted to scraping at it. They clawed at the walls day after day, the wretched screeching echoing through the palace like clockwork. Each night the guards drew straws to see who would have to watch over them.

Then, three days after the prisoners escaped, the skeletons suddenly stopped. The guards perked up, noticing the lack of scraping. The undead soldiers stiffened like statues and collapsed into a heap, bones breaking apart, disintegrating into dust, leaving only rusty weapons and helmets behind. The captain of the guard was called into the room, and surveyed the remains of the skeletons with dismay.

Hieronymus would retire a few years later, when his tireless campaign against the Grey Fox grew too stressful for him. He would never know the secret behind the mystery of the Akaviri soldiers, never know what happened to the Dunmer and the Argonian, the only two people known to have escaped the Imperial Prison.

With an exasperated sigh, Hieronymus called forth one of the guards.

“Sweep up this mess and deliver it to the Arcane University. I’m sure they’ll find some use for it.”

* * *

Landil gasped with exhaustion, white spots flashing in his vision. He leant against a nearby tree to stop his shaking. He mumbled another healing spell, but it could only staunch the bleeding, and he would need proper medical attention if he was going to make it back to the Summerset Isles alive. The city walls of Bruma wavered in the distance, and he pressed onwards.

What nagged at the back of his mind, though, was the thought that it was all in vain. The Dunmer wench and the Argonian freak had outsmarted him. They were taking the amulet to Pale Pass, and Landil doubted they would make it out alive. If the amulet was returned to its master, it would likely never leave those ruins again.

Landil spat and cursed the divines. Tracelmo would not forgive this mistake, no matter what excuses he gave. That haughty ivory tower mage had no idea how difficult the task was. It wouldn’t have _been_ difficult, if that blasted Dunmer hadn’t interfered.

Even if Landil made it back to the Summerset Isles, he had no life to return to. In his feverish state he began to fantasise of running away, perhaps starting a new life in High Rock or Daggerfall. But he doubted he would prove any less hapless there. Bad luck had a habit of following him around.

By the time he reached Bruma, he had pulled himself together somewhat. The wound wasn’t as deep as it had initially seemed, or at least, it wasn’t going to be deadly. He would seek the help of a healer in town, but discreetly, and think about what to do in the meantime.

As he was musing on this, he walked past the stables outside the city, barely noticing the group of Orcs congregating outside it, sharing heated words with the owner.

“Hey!”

Landil turned around wearily. One of them was jabbing a sausage-shaped finger at him.

“Do you know what happened to our horses?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Did you perhaps eat them and forget?”

The Orc snarled at him. Landil knew better than to make such a low blow, but in his current state he felt rather reckless.

“Say, I recognise him,” another one of the louts said, stepping closer to inspect him. “You were that one wandering around Chorrol, all suspicious. I reckon _you_ took them.”

“Do you see any horses on me?”

They shrugged and mumbled between themselves.

“You’re a mage, aren’t you? What if you just magicked them away, hid them somewhere in the forest?”

“I assure you, I have much better things to do with my time than to spirit away horses. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He turned to the city gates, but was stopped by a large hand on his shoulder.

“No, I won’t. You’re coming with us.”

Landil whipped round to cast a spell, but his hands had already been pulled behind him, and he gasped with pain as his wound reopened. He looked pleadingly at the stable owner, but found that they had shut themselves inside, not wanting to take a side in this conflict. He cast a desperate glance at the city guards, but their eyes were elsewhere. Too afraid to face the Orcs.

Maybe, Landil thought dryly as he was dragged into the trees, it would have been better to be killed by that Argonian.

* * *

Meeran bowed his head to the floor, wishing there was a way he could prostrate himself more than he already was. It did not matter if he begged for forgiveness. The Black Hand did not forgive.

“Meeran. You have surprised me, once again.”

Lucien Lachance’s voice had always reminded Meeran of the sibilant hiss of a snake. It was soft and yet venomous at once, and his words were always carefully chosen and enunciated.

“I apologise, Speaker.”

“I know that you are sorry. And yet, you must understand that I have no choice.”

Lucien spoke in velvety tones, committing men to death as if he were reading poetry. Occasionally he spoke in strangled whispers, as if he got sexual pleasure from giving out his orders. His link to the Night Mother was strong, and when Meeran stood in his presence, he felt her gaze upon him.

Lucien Lachance did not feel sorry for Meeran. Such an emotion could not be present in this preternatural man, this sensuous figure of death. Meeran knew this, and the faux sympathy stung him like the fangs of a serpent slipping into his neck.

“Nusha did indeed have a… peculiar destiny,” Lucien continued. “But in the end, it was not that which you had envisioned. A shame. There are so few who can navigate Black Marsh like you do. But I suppose we all make mistakes in judgement.”

From Lucien’s tone, Meeran could tell that _he_ never thought himself capable of error.

“Rise, Meeran.”

Trembling, Meeran stood up. He could no longer conceal his fear. Lucien held his chin, forced him to gaze directly into his eyes. The man leant closer to him, the candlelight flickering in his eyes hypnotically.

He drew Meeran towards him and kissed him, his human mouth bobbing awkwardly against Meeran’s snout. The Argonian shuddered in surprise. Lucien moved away, and Meeran felt a bitter taste slide down his throat. The poison took effect immediately, blurring his vision and numbing his muscles. He fell to the floor, the half-obscured smile of Lucien Lachance the last thing he saw.

* * *

“Don’t look, dear.”

It was too late. Fevari had already seen the starburst of entrails spilling out onto the cobbles of the street. Everyone in the district stood around it, gawping at Avranu’s grisly fate. The guards tried to move people back, but the crowd was too thick, and the only concession they received was some space to inspect the body.

Fevari didn’t know what to feel. She knew that this woman was evil. She had heard her parents speak of her in hushed whispers at night, when they thought she was asleep. She could see the relief in their faces now. But to her, it was all just a small piece in the confusing tapestry that made up the lives of adults. Try as her parents might to make her look away, she knew that what she’d seen today would rest in her memory for a long time.

“She must’ve been responsible for those Akaviri skeletons.”

“A fitting end. I wonder who did us the pleasure?”

“If only they could do the same with the Grey Fox.”

Normally, Fevari would have wanted to stay there for hours, to listen to all the adults gossip and speculate. But today, their words buzzed in her ears like the flies that buzzed hungrily around the entrails before her.

“Let’s go, Mother.”

* * *

“Chew, Karme, chew!”

Karme had started to choke on a potato—the third time she’d done that this meal. She knew she should slow down, but despite the amount of stew and bread she’d eaten, her stomach still growled ravenously.

They’d made the journey back to Bruma without stopping. Tun-Na picked up considerably, and once they reached the horses he insisted they continue on without him. When they returned to the countess, she immediately accepted them in her court, and to Nusha’s surprise, she wasn’t waiting with a troop of Imperial soldiers to capture them.

Her eyes gleamed covetously as soon as Nusha revealed the Draconian Madstone, and she barely listened as they told her the revised version of their quest. She gave them a thousand Septims and ordered them away before they caused a ruckus in town.

They left Bruma, heading south and stopping at an inn off the beaten track. It was the kind of place where nobody would bat an eyelid at such strange-looking visitors, as long as they had the Septims, but for extra security they took their meal to their cramped shared room, scarfing it down by candlelight.

They were safe for now. They had spotted no Imperial soldiers on the road, and it seemed the furore over the skeletons in the Imperial City had died down somewhat. It was an odd occurrence, for sure, but the last few decades had been full of strange happenings in the Empire.

Karme knew they wouldn’t be safe forever, though.

She thought she would feel relieved that their journey had come to an end, but now she was realising that it wasn’t over, that too much had happened for her to return to the simple, naïve life she had led before.

Worst of all, a heavy weight hung around her heart. She had been able to avoid thinking about it while they had the amulet, but she now worried greatly about her parents. She had not heard from them since she arrived in Bruma, and while the memories from her imprisonment were hazy and confused, she was sure she had told the Imperial interrogator about them while she was being questioned.

“Alright,” she said, sending globs of stew flying into Nusha’s lap. “What are you gonna do?”

Nusha laughed at her—the genteel manners Karme had once espoused had so righteously been cast aside. “I was hoping you’d have the answer to that.”

Karme gulped, swallowing a spicy lump of meat. “I… have no idea. I think I should return to Morrowind, try and find my parents, but…”

“You’re worried about getting caught up in another storm?”

She nodded. “And if they’re dead, I think it’s maybe better I don’t know.”

Nusha fiddled with her spoon. “Either way, I don’t think I—we can stay in Cyrodiil.”

Karme’s heart fluttered at ‘we’. She had been certain before that they would part, but now they both seemed reluctant. The Argonian had seen more of her than anybody else in the world, and she had seen deep into her friend’s heart as well. That was a bond that wouldn’t be easily erased.

“Can’t go to Skyrim,” Nusha muttered. “Too cold.”

“Morrowind’s off the table. Don’t suppose you want to go back to Black Marsh?”

Nusha chuckled and shook her head. “There’s nothing there for me. And believe me, you might think you can rough it after our little adventure, but Black Marsh is something else entirely.”

“I always dreamed of going to Hammerfell when I was a child,” Karme said. “The structures and the landscape there are similar to Morrowind in some ways, yet there’s something magical about it that fascinates me. And it’d be more than hot enough for you.”

“It’s certainly a good place to hide. No Imperial would come hunting for us in the desert. And we’ve lived through a nightmare. Maybe chasing a dream is just what we need.”

Karme took a big spoonful of stew, hiding her smile behind it.

That night, she and Nusha slept in each other’s arms, like that had by the statue of the Sentinel. But this time, Karme was more than warm enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that's a wrap! Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading along and faveing. I really enjoyed writing this story and I'd love to hear what you think of it, and if you'd like more with the same characters.
> 
> Ciao, Ariel xoxo


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